Tag Archives: Capitol Hill

national news

Riot likely kills Trump’s political future

2 Comments

By JOHN KANELIS / [email protected]

Whether the Senate convicts Donald Trump of incitement of insurrection quite likely is a moot point at this juncture.

Trump will no longer be president when the Senate convenes his second impeachment trial. The House impeached him on a single charge, of inciting the terrorist attack on Capitol Hill on The Sixth of January.

Democrats need 17 Republicans to join them in convicting Trump. It’s still a long shot for conviction, but it is not as long of a shot as it was, say, two weeks ago. If the Senate convicts Trump, then it needs a simple majority to ban him from ever seeking public office.

To be honest, it looks for all the world to me that Trump’s political future vanished the day he exhorted the mob to attack the Capitol Building and interfere with Congress doing its duty to ratify Joe Biden’s victory.

If what is left of the Republican Party has half a brain left, it will shun Trump. It will deny him any leverage at all. It will seek others to carry the party banner in 2024, which Trump reportedly is interested in doing.

I get that Trumpism will survive long after Trump’s term as president expires — which it will do in just a few hours from now.

I will hold out hope that Donald Trump inflicted a mortal wound on the movement that carries his name on the Sixth of January when he whipped up the terrorists to attack the Capitol Building … and assault our system of government.

national news

Will any terrorists show up at Mar-a-Lago?

2 Comments

By JOHN KANELIS / [email protected]

I cannot help but wonder, given Donald Trump’s initial expression of “love” for the terrorists who attacked Capitol Hill on The Sixth of January …

Is the former president going to invite any of ’em to Mar-a-Lago for dinner and drinks with him and Melania?

Heavens no. Which directs me to the amazing irony of the lunatics who sought to disrupt Congress from declaring Joe Biden the winner of the 2020 election.

It is that Trump doesn’t give a rat’s a** about the individuals who shattered the nation’s psyche in his name. They were mobsters, terrorists, rioters who poured into Washington because they swallowed the diet of lies that Donald Trump fed them. He said the election was fraudulent. That the result was “stolen” by hordes of illegal voters. That Trump, not Biden, won the election in a “landslide.”

We witnessed an amazing phenomenon on the sixth day of this month. Militants stormed into the Capitol Building. Many of them are known to be white supremacists; they are Holocaust deniers; they have KKK sympathies. They came from all over the nation.

One of them is a North Texas Realtor who said she was just doing her duty as a patriotic American. Hah! She committed an act of treason, in my humble view.

Meanwhile, their hero will be luxuriating in his posh resort in South Florida. He will have not a damn thing to do with any one of them.

They thought they were making America great again.

national news

Is America ‘great again’ yet?

By JOHN KANELIS / [email protected]

I have some words to share with the MAGA-hatters who might be reading these messages of mine.

We all know what MAGA means. It has become the acronym du jour for “Make America Great Again.”

I have used it a time or two — and that’s about it — as a verb, as in “Let’s all MAGA!” It usually shows up as an adjective to describe those who adhere to the message made infamous by one Donald J. Trump.

Have we done it? Those who subscribe to the MAGA world view, I want to know whether we have “made America great again.”

I was astonished beyond my ability to articulate at the sight of MAGA-hatted rioters plundering the U.S. Capitol Building. Think of the ghastly irony of that, if you have the stomach for it; I am not sure I can quite process it fully.

The MAGA crowd stormed into the Capitol alongside others carrying the flag of traitors, aka the Confederate flag. Think as well of that particular irony. MAGA-hatters profess to want to return America to greatness while ransacking the heart of our democratic system along with those plundering with them under the banner of the flag representing a confederation of states that sought to destroy America. Oh, and why did they want to tear the nation apart? They launched the Civil War to retain their right to own slaves.

Wow, man! How does it feel, MAGA-hatters? Have you accomplished all you set out to do?

Donald Trump, Joe Biden, national news

These wounds won’t heal quickly

By JOHN KANELIS / [email protected]

Let’s start with the obvious.

The wounds on our nation inflicted by the rioters who stormed the Capitol Building this week won’t heal any time soon. They will fester at least for as long as the nation remains transfixed on the doings of the man who instigated the riot: Donald John Trump.

I want the wounds to heal a soon as possible. However, I believe we need to remain vigilant and alert to what brought the havoc to the doorstep of our democracy.

Donald Trump will be gone from the White House in 11 days. The House of Representatives appears set to impeach for a second time early next week. The Senate isn’t likely to convene a trial in time to decide whether to convict him. Still, President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris will be in office on Jan. 20 and they can get right to work dealing with the issues that matter the most.

Like, oh, that pandemic.

Trump wants to remain a political factor. My strong hope is that if the House impeaches him and the Senate convenes a trial after he leaves office that senators can muster up some sort of nerve and approve a provision that bans Trump from seeking public office ever again. He has proved demonstrably that he is unfit for public office. I want the Senate to codify that unfitness with an outright ban.

None of that will silence the mobsters who stormed into the Capitol Building. They could surface again. Indeed, there appear to be threats that Trumpsters could demonstrate on the day that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris take office. Our fondest hope should be that the D.C. police force is better prepared to respond to violence if it presents itself a second time.

Even as we allow time to lapse from the events of this past Wednesday we should be as alert to the rumblings from within our nation as we have continued to be to those we hear from terrorists abroad.

The rioters who stormed into the seat of our representative democracy are domestic terrorists who inflicted grievous damage on our system of government.

Donald Trump’s exit from the political stage cannot occur quickly enough. He’ll be gone, but the damage he and his followers have done will take time to heal.

national news

BLM protests vs. Capitol Hill riot? Let’s ponder that one

1 Comment

By JOHN KANELIS / [email protected]

Let us consider something that needs to be said about why the nation should be outraged at what transpired Wednesday afternoon and evening on the steps of the U.S. Capitol Building.

Right-wingers are growing fond of comparing the riot to the Black Lives Matter protests that admittedly turned violent in many cities across the nation. They cite the difference in the casualty counts; the length of time the disturbances lasted; the scope of one vs. the the other.

What makes the tragedy that unfolded Wednesday so graphic and so hideous is its context. It occurred — and I will write slowly so everyone can understand my meaning — within the halls of our democratic system of government. 

You want some more context? Try this one out: They were incited by the president of the United States, who four years ago took an oath to “defend and protect the Constitution of the United States.” And he swore to God in Heaven that he would be faithful to that pledge.

Donald John Trump this week smashed that oath to smithereens one final time.

I also want to be clear about something else. This blog has decried the violence that has occurred during the BLM riots. I recognize fully that violence does not constitute any sort of “peaceful assembly” or an effort to seek redress of grievances against authority.

That said, let us not compare one series of events to a singular attack on the very foundation of the nation we all profess to love.

The Capitol Hill insurrection stands alone.

national news

Yes, there’s good news from Capitol Hill riot!

(AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

By JOHN KANELIS / [email protected]

The drama we saw unfold this week on Capitol Hill as Congress sought to ratify the election of Joe Biden as president of the United States is a long way from its conclusion.

There will be more chapters to add to the tragedy we witnessed as Donald Trump incited a riot that threatened the men and women who sought to do their constitutional duty.

I am happy to provide what I hope is a glimmer of good news from the travesty. It is that any thought Donald Trump might have about running for the presidency in 2024 has vanished. Donald Trump’s political future is gone. Finished. He is toast. Stick a fork in him; he’s done.

Oh, I am sure there remains a radical fringe of Trumpkins who want Trump to seek the presidency in four years. They are beyond redemption, beyond hope, beyond any sort of revival.

There well might be a second impeachment in Trump’s immediate future. Or, he could be removed from office before his term ends in just 13 days if a majority of the Cabinet, along with Vice President Pence,  goes along with invoking the Constitution’s 25th Amendment. If either event occurs, that would end Trump’s political life.

However, if Trump manages to serve out the remainder of his term — which I venture to say is likely — he can kiss goodbye any thought he might harbor of trying to reclaim the office that President-elect Biden tore from his tiny hands on Nov. 3, 2020.

To be honest, I have sought to find signs of hope from the melee that erupted Wednesday. That is the best I can find at this moment. The rest of that drama has depressed me beyond all measure.

Donald Trump will continue to bloviate and bluster long after he leaves office. That’s fine. Let him bellow. He won’t matter to me or to anyone who takes seriously the future that awaits him.

He is finished.

national news, political news

Cowards occupy Capitol Hill offices

By JOHN KANELIS / [email protected]

I am sickened to the maximum degree by the cowardice I am witnessing among Republicans who occupy most of the U.S. Senate seats and a healthy minority of those in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Americans have just elected Joseph R. Biden Jr. as their president, and yet congressional Republicans by and large refuse to even refer to the president-elect by the title he earned in a free and fair election.

What the hell is going on here?

The Senate’s chief coward, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, has a longstanding professional and political relationship with the president-elect. Yet he remains silent on the issue of whether he won the election. McConnell cowers in the face of the Trumpkin Corps of zealots in Kentucky who threaten him with payback if he does what he should have done long ago, which is recognize President-elect Biden as the winner … and then say so out loud in public!

McConnell is just one, of course.

Still, we are witnessing a shameful and reprehensible dereliction of duty among our congressional leadership to do the right thing, which would be to follow our two-century-old tradition of honoring the results of an election. They are dishonoring that democratic process and dishonoring the government they all took an oath to defend and protect.

They sicken me to my core.

I would say we should vote them out of office. Except that too damn many of them were just returned to office in an election we just completed. I am left, therefore, to just vent on this blog … which I will continue to do until I start seeing some courage emerging from the herd of Capitol Hill cowards.

business news, economic news

What do you know? Dems and Repubs can work together!

The atmosphere in Washington, D.C. has gotten beyond toxic, with the impeachment of the president on the horizon. Democrats and Republicans can’t say anything nice to or about each other these days.

But wait! Amid all that impeachment rancor, exacerbated I should say by Donald Trump’s incessant and relentless Twitter barrage, we see the parties working together to craft a new North American trade agreement.

It’s called the USMCA, which is shorthand for a trade agreement among the United States, Mexico and Canada. It replaces the North American Free Trade Agreement that was hammered out by the Clinton administration.

Donald Trump vowed to scrap NAFTA and replace it with something else. He vowed to craft the best deal in human history. The president hasn’t quite delivered the goods all by himself. It turns out he needed some legislative help not just from his Republican allies, but also from his Democratic foes, er, enemies.

I haven’t yet studied the USMCA, but I understand it’s supposed to benefit Texas business interests, given our lengthy border with Mexico. It also contains some environmental protections that progressives wanted in a new trade deal with Mexico and Canada.

However, the good news amid all the toxicity that infects everything in D.C. these days is that both political parties can lay claim to a victory … that isn’t at the other party’s expense.

That’s not a bad outcome.

State news

Will ‘Texodus’ cause loss of clout in Congress? Uhh, yes, it will

A headline in the Texas Tribune asks a question that borders on the preposterous.

“As experienced Texan congressmen retire, will the states’ sway in Congress decline?”

I have the answer: Yes. It will decline.

Both congressional chambers rely heavily on seniority. The more senior the members of the House and Senate, the more powerful committee assignments they get. They ascend to chairmanships or, if they’re in the House, they sit as “ranking members” of the minority party; a ranking member is deemed to be the senior member of the party that doesn’t control the chairmanship.

My former congressman, Republican Mac Thornberry of Clarendon, is retiring at the end of next year; he won’t seek re-election to his umpteenth term in the House. He serves as ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, a panel he chaired until Democrats took control of the House after the 2018 election.

Congressional power ebbs and flows. Texans who worry about such things need not fret over Texas’s loss of clout in the House. Indeed, if the state is turning into more of a “swing state,” Texas Democrats might find themselves elevated to positions of power formerly occupied by their Republican colleagues.

For the time being, though, the retirements of six Texas members of Congress does create a dwindling clout for the state on Capitol Hill.

However, it is likely far from a terminal ailment.

national news

Circus is coming to Capitol Hill … maybe

It looks as though they’re going to roll out the big top under the Capitol Dome in Washington, D.C., if Republican members of Congress get their way.

The House Intelligence Committee is taking its hearings into the public arena next week with the first televised hearings into the impeachment inquiry into Donald Trump’s term as president.

Congressional Republicans want to hear also from Hunter Biden, the son of former Vice President Joe Biden, and the individual known only as The Whistleblower.

Why do you suppose they want those two individuals to appear? I can make a guess: They are running out of legitimate defenses for the president’s conduct in office and are trying to divert attention from Trump to the son of a potential 2020 campaign opponent and an individual whose report to Congress spawned the impeachment inquiry in the first place.

At issue, of course, is that July phone conversation between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in which Trump asked for a “favor, though,” in exchange for releasing the weaponry that Ukraine asked for to fight Russia-backed rebels. Quid pro quo, anyone? It’s against the law!

Now the GOP caucus wants to question Hunter Biden over his business relationships in Ukraine, which Ukrainian prosecutors have said broke no law. They also want to quiz The Whistleblower and likely want to question his or her motives in squealing on the president.

The hearings get started with a bang this week when the House Intel panel summons career diplomat William Taylor to testify in public what he has said in private, that Trump did seek a favor from Ukraine, which is — shall we say — against the law!

Get ready for the circus to start. The GOP will seek to provide plenty of distractions from the serious and sober business at hand in the House of Representatives.