Tag Archives: 2016 election

national news

Treason: a serious four-letter word

One more comment on “treason,” and then I’m out … maybe, perhaps, hopefully.

When the president of the United States accuses fellow Americans of committing a treasonous act, he is accusing them of aiding and abetting enemies of the state. He is saying that those who commit such acts should be punished accordingly; the law allows traitors to be, um, executed.

Thus, when Donald John “Stable Genius” Trump tosses the t-word at congressional Democrats whose “crime against the state” is to sit on their hands during the president’s State of the Union speech, he’s being politically vulgar in the worst way possible.

Trump did that while speaking to an Ohio crowd this week. He called Democrats’ actions “un-American”; someone in the crowd yelled “treasonous,” which Trump heard and took it to the next step.

“Why not?” he asked about the word, getting guffaws and hoots from the adoring crowd.

Members of the loyal opposition often are impolite, or rude, or sometimes insulting during these speeches. However, hanging the ultimate four-letter word around them — calling their actions “treasonous” — betrays an utter ignorance of the very principle on which the Founding Fathers created the greatest nation on Earth.

Moreover, I am inclined to think that a more treasonous act would be to collude with a foreign power to corrupt our electoral process … if that happened, of course.

Sickening.

national news

You aren’t ‘vindicated,’ Mr. President

Dear Mr. President,

Settle down, sir. You need to guzzle a couple more Diet Cokes and then take stock of what has just happened with regard to the “Russia thing” that has you tied up in knots.

The Republican chairman of the U.S. House Intelligence Committee has released a memo that alleges the special counsel, Robert Mueller, and the FBI are “biased” against you. Yet you contend that the memo “totally vindicates ‘Trump'” in this investigation into whether your campaign colluded with Russians who tried to influence the 2016 election in your favor.

I’ll differ with you, sir. The memo doesn’t vindicate — or convict — anyone. It’s been revealed as a fraudulent document. It cherry picks circumstances with the aim of discrediting Mueller’s probe. I hear the Democrats are planning to release a counter memo to refute what Republicans have alleged.

Your continued tweet tirades against the so-called “witch hunt” do not help your assertion, Mr. President, that you are innocent of any wrongdoing. They merely cause many millions of Americans — folks like me — to wonder: Why is the president so damn worked up if there’s nothing to uncover?

Hey, at this point I don’t really care if you keep using Twitter to project your message. I guess it’s become the medium du jour for pols, entertainers and pundits to communicate. In fact, this blog post will be distributed via Twitter as well.

I do care about the messages you send out there, Mr. President.

You say the memo “vindicates ‘Trump'”? No, sir. It does nothing of the kind.

And please, stop referring to yourself in the third person. John Kanelis cannot stand it.

legal news, national news

‘An American disgrace’? Not even close

Robert Mueller is looking for the truth behind an allegation that will dog the presidency of Donald Trump for as long as he holds the office.

Yet the president calls the search an “American disgrace.”

It is no such thing.

The disgrace is being generated from another source. The Oval Office has produced a disgraceful example either of extreme naivete or willful ignorance or — in the worst case — of deliberate deception.

I don’t know which it is. The president has signed on to the continuing disparagement of the FBI, the Department of Justice and other intelligence agencies that stand by their combined assertion that the Russian government intervened in our 2016 presidential election.

Trump won’t acknowledge publicly what he must: that the intelligence agencies’ assessment is accurate.

I want to stipulate that I do not know if the Russian interference determined the election outcome. I haven’t seen any evidence that votes were changed or that local local elections officials were compromised. Maybe none exists of actual impact on the outcome.

Whether it did or didn’t, the issue is that the Russians meddled. The operative question is whether the Trump campaign was complicit in that act of aggression against our electoral system.

Mueller was selected to find the truth. Republicans and Democrats sang together in praise of Mueller’s appointment, which came from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein after AG Jeff Sessions recused himself from anything dealing with the Russia probe.

The disgrace is occurring now as Republicans are seeking to discredit Mueller, whose integrity once was considered impeccable. If the president fires Mueller, or Rosenstein, or both of them, then the disgrace moves into another category altogether.

Then we’re talking about a certifiable constitutional crisis.

Trump’s definition of “disgrace” needs work. It’s not the search that disgraces the nation. It’s the attempt to derail it that gives millions of Americans serious cause for concern.

national news

Political climate heads toward a boiling point

I happen to believe that the United States of America is heading toward a whole new era of political weirdness. We haven’t seen this before. I hope we never see it again.

In 2016 a carnival barker named Donald John Trump got elected president of the United States. It’s gotten worse since then … if you can believe it.

Alabama voters rejected a goofball Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate. Roy Moore, who lost a special election to Democratic Sen. Doug Jones, hasn’t conceded yet. It’s been nearly two months after the election.

The president continues to foment division and disunity among the two parties — and has created a widening schism within his own Republican Party.

Donald Trump has declared war on the FBI and the Department of Justice. When did you ever see that happen? How many of you thought it would happen now?

The social medium Twitter has become the favored method of communication among the president, members of Congress, high-powered federal government agency heads and, oh I don’t know, just about anyone with a platform from which to spout public policy.

The government cannot fund itself past the next fortnight. Congress is fighting among its members over immigration. The president wants to build that wall along our border with Mexico. He still insists Mexico will pay for it. Mexico’s president says, in effect, “Ain’t no way, dude!”

In Arizona, a former sheriff who Trump pardoned for civil rights crimes and for violating federal court orders, is now running for another U.S. Senate out west. Joe Arpaio might win his Republican primary race! Can you believe that? Me neither, but it could happen.

Members of Congress are retiring in droves. Some of them have flat-out quit. Democrats and Republicans are being accused of sexual misconduct.

And, oh yes, the president himself is now believed to have paid a porn queen $130,000 to keep quiet about an alleged affair the two of them had. Trump and the “actress” deny the affair, but no one is denying that the president paid her the dough.

Trump told us as he ran for president he would shake things up. He promised to toss out the orthodox playbook.

He has lied about damn near everything. Trump has insulted our allies, recharged the bogus allegation that Barack Obama wasn’t qualified to serve as president, accused Hillary Clinton of committing crimes, fired an FBI director, called the media the “enemy of the American people” and stoked cynicism at every opportunity.

The special counsel is continuing his probe of “this Russia thing.” Trump accuses Robert Mueller of engaging in a “witch hunt” and then promises to speak to him “under oath” if he is asked; oh, but then he backed off of that, sort of …

Many millions of Americans, meanwhile, are on the verge of going crazy as we watch all of this unfold in real time before our eyes.

Help!

national news

Not all in GOP are buying into Nunes memo

I am happy to acknowledge that the Republican Party’s ranks of power players aren’t singing off the same hymnal page as it regards Russian interference in our electoral process.

Donald John Trump and many of his GOP “friends” in Congress have released a memo that accuses the FBI of bias in its investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.

U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., isn’t one of them.

He has released a blistering statement telling Trump that the memo is doing “Putin’s job for him.”

McCain’s statement, issued prior to the release of the memo from the House Intelligence Committee’s Republican members, said, in part: “In 2016, the Russian government engaged in an elaborate plot to interfere in an American election and undermine our democracy,” McCain said. “Russia employed the same tactics it has used to influence elections around the world, from France and Germany to Ukraine, Montenegro and beyond.”

According to the Huffington Post: McCain said Russia’s interference has, at best, sown political discord and succeeded in “dividing us from each other.” Attacking the intelligence community is not how to fix the discord, he said.

I am acutely aware of Sen. McCain’s longstanding antipathy toward Donald J. Trump. The then-GOP presidential candidate disparaged McCain’s heroic service during the Vietnam War. The men haven’t made peace yet.

That doesn’t diminish the importance of what McCain is saying about the release of the memo, written by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif. The intelligence community opposed its release, as did the FBI leadership.

McCain wrote further: “The latest attacks against the FBI and Department of Justice serve no American interests ― no party’s, no President’s, only Putin’s,” McCain added. “The American people deserve to know all the facts surrounding Russia’s ongoing efforts to subvert our democracy, which is why Special Counsel (Robert) Mueller’s investigation must proceed unimpeded. Our nation’s elected officials, including the president, must stop looking at this investigation through the lens of politics and manufacturing political sideshows. If we continue to undermine our own rule of law, we are doing Putin’s job for him.”

This is not how you protect the interests of the people you were elected to govern, Mr. President.

International news, national news, political news

When will POTUS ever recognize the Russia threat?

I guess there’s not a single thing I do can do except keep yapping out loud about it. So, therefore, I will.

When is the president of the United States going to acknowledge publicly what many of his fellow Americans already know: Russia threatens our sacred political process.

Instead, Donald John Trump Sr. continues to disparage our law enforcement agencies, our counterintelligence organizations, our criminal justice system, our key protectors.

Trump ratcheted up that criticism of our law enforcement agencies today by allowing the release of a Republican-authored memo that accuses the FBI of bias in its investigation into Russian hacking of our electoral process.

The president attacked the leadership of the FBI and the Justice Department. Oh, sure, he managed to say a good word about the “rank and file” within the FBI. The men and women on the front line, though, work for the very leadership that Trump has continued to criticize, undermine and — some might argue — defame.

I won’t accuse the president of defaming the FBI and DOJ leadership, but I keep returning to a fundamental question: When is the president going to admit in the open that Russia is a bad actor?

Russian President/strongman Vladimir Putin is no “friend” of the United States. I don’t know this as fact, but I cannot believe for an instant that the former KGB boss thinks as highly of Trump as the president says he does. A large part of me believes Putin is laughing his backside off at the confusion, chaos and controversy he has delivered to the United States as a result of the Russian meddling in our 2016 presidential election.

Putin committed an act of aggression against this country and for the life of me, I cannot accept why the president of the United States refuses to call that aggression what it is.

I have my share of theories as to why he remains quiet on Russia. I maintain my belief that Americans deserve to see the president’s full tax returns and financial disclosure. They very well could tell us plenty about the president’s reluctance to call the Russians out.

Donald Trump’s silence is deafening in the extreme.

national news

What about ‘Russia,’ Mr. President?

I didn’t expect Donald Trump to bring up “the Russia thing” during his State of the Union speech Tuesday night.

It would have required a suspension of disbelief to assume the president would say that a “year of the Russia probe is enough.” He wasn’t about to elevate special counsel Robert Mueller’s accelerated investigation into alleged collusion with Russian hackers by the Trump presidential campaign.

But I was hoping at some level that the president might bring up Russia’s interference in our 2016 presidential election at some level. Perhaps he could have at least pledged to protect our electoral process against actual or perceived foreign meddling, against those who would hack into our process and seek to determine an outcome they preferred.

He didn’t even have to acknowledge what the U.S. intelligence community has determined — that Russia did meddle in our 2016 election.

Contrary to the assertions of the White House press office, the Russia meddling is on the minds of millions of Americans who are concerned about what effect it might have had on the outcome. I am not yet convinced that the Russian hacking into our system was decisive, that they actually tilted the election in Trump’s favor.

Whether the Russians succeeded in their aim, though, misses the point. The point — as I get it — is that they did what they did and put the integrity of our system of “free and fair elections” in jeopardy.

That amounts to an act of open hostility by our nation’s preeminent international adversary.

And isn’t the president supposed to protect us against such assaults on our democratic system? Shouldn’t the president declare his intention to stop such interference in the future? And shouldn’t he put the international perpetrators on notice?

Donald Trump was silent on that matter.

Frightening.

business news, national news

Cyber security remains a (pipe) dream

CIA Director Mike Pompeo has issued a dire warning, which is that it is a near certainty that Russia is going to try meddling in our 2018 midterm election.

Yep, just like they did in the 2016 presidential election, the event that the president of the United States — Donald John Trump Sr. — keeps denying publicly.

Mr. President, please talk to the CIA boss. He knows more about this stuff than you do.

However, I keep circling back to an initiative that was launched in 2011 in Congress. It was designed to improve cyber security and was to be led by my own member of Congress, Republican U.S. Rep. Mac Thornberry.

House Speaker John Boehner appointed Thornberry to lead a select committee to iron out the wrinkles in our nation’s cyber security system. It’s interesting to me that this was a GOP-only panel, comprising just Republican members of the House. I guess Thornberry and Boehner didn’t think there were any Democrats who could contribute to what ought to be a bipartisan/non-partisan concern.

Thornberry said in a statement after the panel’s work was done:

Cyber is deeply ingrained in virtually every facet of our lives.  We are very dependent upon it, which means that we are very vulnerable to disruptions and attacks.  Cyber threats pose a significant risk to our national security as well as to our economy and jobs.

At least 85 percent of what must be protected is owned and operated by the private sector.  Government must tread carefully in this area or risk damaging one of our greatest strengths — dynamic, innovate companies and businesses that are the key to our economy and to cybersecurity advances.

A “significant threat to our national security.” Yep, Rep. Thornberry, that is so very correct.

That threat presented itself in the 2016 election. There remain myriad questions about whether the Donald Trump campaign played a role in that threat. We’ll know the answer in due course, once the special counsel, Robert Mueller, finishes his work.

However, I do believe it’s fair to wonder: With all the work that Rep. Thornberry’s committee did to improve cybersecurity, did it do enough to protect our electoral system from the hanky-panky that came from this country’s preeminent foreign adversary?

I do not believe it did.

International news, national news

From sh**hole to bullsh** letter

Donald John “Potty Mouth” Trump Sr. has sent a letter to African leaders proclaiming his immense respect for the nations of that continent.

He “deeply respects” the people of Africa. Do you believe him? Uhh, neither do I.

The president infamously wondered out loud about why the nation accepts immigrants from “sh**hole countries” in Africa, as well as from Haiti and El Salvador. It produced a serious firestorm. There have been denials from Trump himself, the White House, some Trump friends who were in the meeting. Oh, but others in the room have affirmed he said it.

Trump then writes a letter declaring his yuuuge respect for African nations.

Sure thing … like he respects our intelligence community even though he disputes its findings that Russia sought to influence the 2016 election outcome; or how he respects women despite admitting that he grabs them by their genitals; or how he respects the sacred vows of marriage even though he admits to wanting to have sex with a married woman — or how he has bragged about how he has cheated on at least one of his former wives.

Mr. President, save your chickensh** letters that seek to do nothing more than cover your own backside.

The man seemingly does not possess the capacity for sincerity, except when it involves self-aggrandizement.

local news, political news

Trump brings out worst in allies and foes

I have reached a regrettable conclusion about the state of political play in the Texas Panhandle.

It is that I cannot discuss politics where it involves specifically the policies promoted by the president of the United States, Donald John Trump.

More specifically, I cannot talk openly about my own feelings about the president, who I consider to be wholly unfit to hold the office he has occupied for the past year and six days.

I had an exchange this week with a good friend, someone I have known for the entire 23 years I have lived and worked in Amarillo. He is an elected official. He is as fine a public servant as I’ve ever met in my professional life.

My friend is a dedicated Republican. He’s a fierce partisan. He also has a good heart and is dedicated to serving the people who have elected him to public office.

We were chatting the other day when Trump’s name came up. My friend initiated the discussion. I grimaced noticeably. He knows my political leanings, which run counter to the prevailing view of the Texas Panhandle’s half-million or so residents. The residents of the 26 counties of the Texas Panhandle voted overwhelmingly for Trump over Hillary Rodham Clinton in the 2016 election.

My friend began talking about the “deep state,” and about how “corrupt” the FBI has been and how Trump is the “right man for these times.” I told my pal that I didn’t want to get into it with him at that moment. I sought to tell him that I detest the president’s policies. He said, “You’re a smart man. You’re smart enough to know what I’m talking about.”

And as he kept heaping faint praise on me about my intelligence, I could see that he, too, was getting worked up over my intense loathing of the president. He was pursing his lips and his eyes narrowed into a bit of a squint.

I then managed to change the subject. We moved on to the next topic. Our friendship is intact. I breathed a sigh of relief.

This is what has happened in the Era of Trump. Friends on opposing sides of the Great Divide no longer can talk about politics without getting worked up, getting angry at the other guy.

It occurs me: This is precisely how Donald Trump is governing. He is dividing Americans. His pledge to “unify the country” is the stuff of a flim-flam artist.

I guess I should thank the president for affirming my point about his unfitness for the job to which he was elected.

I should. But I won’t.