Tag Archives: 2020 election

national news

GOP senator: profile in cowardice

(AP Photo/Cliff Owen)

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin knows the truth about the 2020 presidential election. Joe Biden has been elected president of the United States. Donald Trump has been booted out on his a**.

The Republican senator, though, just cannot say it out loud within earshot of anyone who would hear him. He cannot acknowledge that President-elect Biden is going to take office next month as the 46th president.

Johnson says he would commit “political suicide.” That’s it. He speaks to the obvious outcome and he fears some kind of push back from the GOP base that has swilled the battery acid potion that makes folks believe that Biden’s free and fair election was the product of phony voter fraud.

Best of all, Sen. Johnson wants Attorney General William Barr — who says there is no evidence of fraud in the electoral process — to prove the absence of such evidence.

Um, let’s see. How does one prove the absence of something when the burden always falls on those to prove the existence of evidence?

So, there you have it. A leading GOP minion of Donald Trump just cannot acknowledge what most of us know already … that Joe Biden is going to take the oath as the next president of the United States.

Johnson casts a profile in cowardice.

national news

Where is the GOP outrage over death threat?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Gabriel Sterling has emerged as a Republican Party hero.

Finally. Someone has come forth and spoken the harsh truth to those who need to hear it. He has aimed his rhetorical fire directly at Donald J. Trump, the lame-duck president who is leaving office amid a swirl of chaos and confusion. Imagine that.

Who is this fellow? He is a GOP election official from Georgia. He works for the Republican Georgia secretary of state, Ben Raffensberger, who has endorsed the comments Sterling made at the statehouse this week.

Sterling spoke harshly and with intense anger about the death threat leveled against a former Department of Homeland Security official who declared the 2020 presidential election was the most secure in history. The official is Christopher Krebs, who was in charge of election cyber security. He did his job. Donald Trump’s narrative, though, insists there exists widespread voter fraud. Trump fired Krebs.

Then came former federal prosecutor Joseph DeGenova to say that Krebs should be “drawn and quartered” and then “shot.”

Did the president condemn those remarks? Have other Republicans stepped up to verbally body-slam DeGenova? No! Thus, Gabriel Sterling is an angry man. He vented his anger forcefully by condemning Donald Trump’s silence as well as the silence of Georgia’s two GOP U.S. senators — David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler — who are facing runoff contests next month.

Gabriel Sterling has said what Republicans across the land should have said long ago. That Donald Trump and his minions are fanning the flames of hatred of the democratic system. Joseph DeGenova symbolizes how far that hatred has gone.

“It must stop,” Sterling said. “It is not right,” he said.

Yes it should. It is wrong to the max for individuals to deliver threats such as what DeGenova delivered.

It also is wrong for high-profile politicians to bite their lips and remain silent when we hear such hatred coming forth into the public domain. To that end, Gabriel Sterling has emerged as a heroic figure because he has shown courage in calling the president what he has proven himself to be.

Donald J. Trump is a craven coward.

national news, political news

Democracy: big winner of 2020 election

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Let’s set aside — if we can — the idiotic challenges that Donald Trump continues to mount against our electoral system.

I want to declare that the big winner of the 2020 election was none other than democracy itself. I continue to watch the straggler votes being counted and am utterly amazed at the huge numbers being rung up by the vote counters.

Nationally, more than 157 million ballots were cast. President-elect Joe Biden captured 51.2 percent of them; Donald Trump collected 46.9 percent. Biden’s vote total is nearly 81 million ballots; Trump has collected more than 74 million. Trump can claim some sort of “moral” victory (although “moral” is a word I usually do not associate with Trump) in knowing he has the second-greatest vote total in U.S. history.

Why are these numbers so staggering? Because they came while the nation is suffering through a massive pandemic that has killed more than 270,000 Americans.

Politicians urged us to vote. The call came mostly from Democrats who wanted to ensure that Americans used their constitutional right. They encouraged us to vote early if possible. My wife and I voted on the first day of early voting in Texas. We were glad to do so.

Democracy came out the big winner. Our democratic process has survived. I am confident it will survive this farcical attempt by Trump to overturn the clear and decisive result that we all delivered on Election Day. It might take some time for democracy to recover from the wounds that Trump has inflicted by sowing all this doubt into the integrity of our democratic system … but it will. Of that I am supremely confident.

President Ford told us on the day he took office that “our Constitution works.” It has shown us yet again — in the midst of a deadly pandemic — that it remains resilient, sturdy and strong.

national news

Trump goes 0-for-forever in his losing fight

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Donald Trump got his litigation head handed to him once again.

This time it was a Pennsylvania court that said to the president: No can do on your effort to overturn an election result.

Good grief. Trump is in the middle of a monstrous losing streak.

I think he’s zero for 35 … or something like that. Still, The Donald ain’t giving up, at least not publicly. I keep hearing that privately every one of his top aides, Cabinet hands, family members are talking among themselves. They are saying it’s over.

Someone needs to get to the man who keeps yapping about an election he lost bigly.

national news

Trump goes out as he came in: amid chaos

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Donald J. Trump is going out in a blizzard of incoherence, which to my memory reminds me of how he entered the presidency.

He was willfully ignorant of what it took to take the reins of government. He never learned a thing. Now he’s exiting the White House on Jan. 20 while offering a mysterious string of incoherent rants.

For instance, he said he will leave D.C. “if” the Electoral College certifies that President-elect Biden won the election on Nov 3. Whaddya mean “if,” dude? The Electoral College is going to certify Joe Biden as the winner, and a clear winner at that! His margin of actual vote victory is widening daily, surpassing 6 million ballots. The Electoral College count stands at 306-232, with Biden over Trump. Period. End of story.

Oh, but wait. Now comes Trump saying that he would leave the White House if Biden can prove that the 80 million-plus votes he has racked up came about legitimately. That they were all legally cast votes.

Huh? Hey, Donald, I have news for you. The states that have certified the results have declared they all are legal, free and fair votes. They say without hesitation that there is no “widespread” voter fraud. There isn’t even any minuscule voter fraud, they say. These are election professionals who know what they are doing, unlike the lame-duck make-believe president who has been in over his head from the moment he took the oath in January 2017.

Donald Trump is leaving the White House no later than Jan. 20. I am rolling around in my head the idea that he might depart before then, forgoing the niceties associated with attending his successor’s inaugural. I mean, if he’s going to refuse to acknowledge that President-elect Biden, what’s the point of him and Melania even bothering to show up?

I only can imaging what might happen as he and the first lady step aboard Marine One for the flight away from the Capitol. It might get real ugly.

Chaos reigns supreme at the end of the Trump Era, just as reigned at its beginning. Who knew?

national news

Transition makes the head spin

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

This presidential transition, which began in earnest just two days ago — more than two weeks after an election! — has my noggin spinning.

I mean, we have a president in office who I am ignoring. Why? Because I believe nothing that comes out of Donald J. Trump’s mouth. That’s why! He is irrelevant to me … unless, of course, he decides to start a war or do something else that’s really stupid and foolish. He is the commander in chief until Jan. 20.

We also have a president-elect who won the election clearly and decisively in a free and fair contest. Joe Biden is the one who is sounding, acting and behaving in a presidential manner. And he’s not in even in office yet!

Do you get my point? Maybe I shouldn’t suffer from this head-spinning dilemma. OK, I won’t.

I am just going to focus solely on the rhetoric I hear from President-elect Biden and ignore the hogwash that spews from Donald J. Trump.

There. Problem solved. My head just stopped spinning.

national news

Trump refuses to accept loss? Big … deal!

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

The media need to stop harping on an issue that, to my way of thinking, has zero relevance to anything important.

It is that Donald Trump continues to refuse to accept President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in the presidential election.

Trump went to Pennsylvania today to pitch the bogus assertion that Biden’s win was the result of a “rigged” election. It won’t matter. The courts there will do what other courts have done, which is toss the complaints out summarily.

As The Associated Press reported: “This was an election that we won easily. We won it by a lot,” Trump declared to the group gathered at a hotel in Gettysburg. Trump, in fact, lost to President-elect Joe Biden by about 80,000 votes in the state, and Pennsylvania certified Biden as the winner on Tuesday.

The important aspect of this post-election drama is that the General Services Administration has commenced the transition process with the new president’s team. That is what matters. It doesn’t matte a damn bit to me that Donald Trump won’t accept the obvious.

You see, we all know what the numbers tell us: Joe Biden collected 80 million votes; he won 306 Electoral College votes; he beat Trump by roughly 4 percentage points; Biden flipped five states that voted for Trump in 2016.

What’s more, he did all this while winning what Donald Trump’s own national security election guru has called the “most secure election” in U.S. history.

Whether the current president accepts this is irrelevant. Donald Trump is under no legal or constitutional obligation to do so. It’s merely a custom. Trump has boasted of smashing presidential customs. So, let him smash this one, too.

I merely want the GSA to certify the obvious and for the transition to continue as it should, giving President-elect Biden’s team access to relevant pandemic response issues, daily presidential intelligence briefs, the whole host of issues that the new guy needs to familiarize himself with as he prepares to take office.

Trump’s petulance is the reaction of a narcissist.

national news

Giving thanks for voters’ wisdom

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Allow me a brief moment to mix a bit of politics with the holiday week we’re going to celebrate.

I am giving thanks for the wisdom voters exhibited on Nov. 3 by tossing Donald John Trump out of the White House.

I remained cautiously optimistic that the outcome would turn out as it did, with Joe Biden assuming the title of president-elect. Yes, I had concern that Trump might pull a Houdini-like escape performance by repeating the stunning upset he scored in 2016 to become president.

When the votes came in and were tabulated, my concern was replaced by the satisfaction in realizing that most American voters were able to rectify the mistake that occurred four years ago.

They’re still counting ballots around the country. I look at the running totals almost daily and am heartened by the realization that more than 51 percent of Americans endorsed Joe Biden’s pledge to “restore our nation’s soul.” It needs restoration, to be sure.

I am going to place my faith in the deeds of the new president, that he will be able to bridge the chasm that divides us.

We’re going to give thanks for a lot of things this week. We shall give thanks for living in this great nation, for the liberty granted to us as Americans. We will give thanks for our families and the love that surrounds us and that we give in return.

I also am going to give thanks for the spirit of political redemption that arose on Election Day.

If this post offends you because it mixes partisan politics with the joy of a happy holiday, well … too bad. It’s what I am feeling in my heart this glorious morning.

Have a wonderful day.

national news

Shame on GOP enablers

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I feel like a pebble covered in an avalanche of boulders.

I live in Princeton, Texas, in Collin County, which is considered a Republican stronghold. I didn’t vote this month for Donald Trump. I supported the candidacy of Joe Biden and continue to support his ascendance to the presidency of the United States.

However, given that I live in this GOP ocean, I am silenced a bit by the complicity of GOP political leaders who are engaging in one of the most shameful acts of betrayal I have ever witnessed.

I want to tell my neighbors that their politicians are enabling Trump to undermine our sacred democratic process by their refusal to even recognize Biden as the nation’s next president. I don’t dare tell them what I believe.

As reprehensible as Trump’s conduct has been since President-elect Biden was declared the winner of the election, the conduct of GOP political leaders — especially those in Texas — is even worse. They are contributing, enabling Trump to continue his charade. He tells the Big Lie that the election was “rigged.” GOP leaders in Texas and elsewhere are silent. Their silence implies agreement, complicity in this monstrous demonstration of presidential petulance.

Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz are silent. My congressman, Van Taylor? Not a sound. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has offered a reward for anyone who can provide proof of election fraud in Texas. Bold stuff, Dan, given that no one will produce anything of the sort.

They won’t even refer to Biden as president-elect.

This is beyond ridiculous. It is dangerous. It betrays the Constitution they all swore to protect and defend. Their silence gives Trump license to sow seeds of doubt into our precious democratic process.

Previous presidents of both parties have lost re-election bids. They have accepted the results of the voters. They have done so with class and grace. This one, Donald Trump, doesn’t exhibit any of his predecessors’ decorum. Worse than that, neither do the mindless minions who continue to kowtow to this man’s idiotic notion that he won re-election “by a landslide.”

They should be shamed for the rest of their political careers.

national news

C’mon, senator … Biden is ‘president-elect’

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Dang, I was hoping U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn could avoid being sucked into the Republicans’ loony bin caucus when she joined that body in January 2019.

The Tennessee lawmaker, sadly, has swilled the nut job Kool-Aid by authorizing her staff to declare that her reference to Joe Biden as “president-elect” was a misspoken statement.

Good … grief, senator. The president-elect is going to take office in a couple of months. He will be the duly elected president of the United States. I daresay he will be even more “duly elected” than Donald Trump, the Sore Loser in Chief who lost to Biden. Indeed, as Trump yammers about how a “rigged election” put Biden in office, he ignores the actual rigging that occurred in 2016 when Russians conspired to assist The Donald into the White House.

As for Trump’s assertions about this year’s election, it’s crap, senator. It’s pure bullsh** that she and others of the GOP caucus have fomented by their continuing to sow doubt about the election.

There has been no evidence produced — zero! — that suggests “widespread” voter fraud. Still, the GOP lunatics keep enabling Trump to sow doubt and undermine our democratic process.

Sen. Blackburn, sadly, is one of them.

Give it up, Marsha.