Tag Archives: GOP

crime news, national news

Graham says riots will ensue if Trump indicted?

The English language seems to lack terminology I determine to be strong enough to condemn the message delivered this weekend by Sen. Lindsey Graham.

The South Carolina Republican said riots will explode on our streets if Donald Trump is prosecuted for breaking the law.

Did the senator call for calm? Did he offer condemnation if that were to occur? Did he call on his cult leader, Trump, to tell the shrinking base of cultists to stand down?

Hell no!

All he did was “predict” street riots would occur.

What a disgraceful comment from a supposedly serious member of the U.S. Senate!

The more that flies out of Graham’s pie hole, the less I think of him.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Joe Biden, national news

MAGA = serious threat

President Biden is correct to assert that the MAGA wing of the Republican Party poses an existential threat to our democracy.

These are the fruitcakes, the adherents of the Make America Great Again wing of the once-Grand Old Party, who continue to insist that The Big Lie is the Big Truth, that the 2020 election was stolen from the MAGA Liar in Chief and that there must be hell to pay for a transgression that did not exist.

The president has kicked into 2022 midterm election campaign mode. I welcome his return to the fight. Of course, the mainstream Republican Party — which ought to hail the president’s message as a comforting elixir — is condemning him for speaking the truth.

Donald Trump this week called for the immediate removal of Mitch McConnell as GOP Senate leader. Why? Because McConnell — belatedly, of course — is now speaking the truth about Trump, that the ex-POTUS poses a dangerous threat to the democratic process.

Milquetoast Mitch likely won’t fight back with the ferocity that such an insult deserves. He probably doesn’t want to pi** off the MAGA cultists who continue to consume the swill that Trump serves them about The Big Lie and how he’s being “persecuted” by those “far-left Democrats.”

Trump is becoming unhinged daily by defections from his ranks, by continuing negative developments into the investigation of his effort to steal the 2020 election.

There can be no doubt Joe Biden is right on this one, calling MAGA Republicans the nation’s greatest political threat.

They sicken me.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Joe Biden, national news

Expectations have let me down

My expectation of a transfer to smooth governance from an administration that prided itself on chaos, confrontation and confusion perhaps might have placed too large a burden on the new guys who took over in January 2021.

President Biden’s term in office so far has been anything but smooth, seamless and serene. Indeed, the administration has found itself fighting with Republicans in much the same manner its immediate predecessor fought with Democrats.

Except for one little factor that I had hoped would come into play: President Biden brought decades of legislative and government administrative experience to a task to which Donald J. Trump brought none of the above.

Silly me. I didn’t count — as I should have — on Republican obstructionism born out of the GOP’s anger over the way Democrats responded to Trump getting in the way.

But … it has.

To be sure, the president has been able to claim bipartisan victories on gun legislation and on infrastructure renovation. The number of Republican lawmakers to join their Democratic colleagues has been nominal … and that’s the nice way of saying it.

The recent enactment of the Inflation Reduction Act more or less illustrates a point I intend to make, which is that it is dangerous to govern only with the endorsement of those within your own party. Biden received zero Republican support in the House for the IRA. It took a tie-breaking vote by Vice President Harris to put the bill over the top in the Senate.

I had placed a great deal of faith in my belief that Joe Biden’s many decades in government would buy him some political capital that he could spend on behalf of our needs. My faith was misplaced, I am sorry to acknowledge.

Indeed, the president found himself in hot water with Democratic Party progressives because — and this just kills me — he boasted about how he was able to work with narrow-minded Republicans in pushing through legislation.

I continue to stand with President Biden because I believe in the crux of where he wants to lead this nation. He told us he wants us to treat each other with fairness and compassion. He wants to steer us away from the bitterness we heard daily from the four years his predecessor occupied the White House.

That’s all worth endorsing, at least in principle.

Except that Republicans continue to adhere to the politics of meanness and retribution. I hoped that a better day would have dawned by now. Maybe it will … eventually.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Setting aside an evening of election returns

I am all but lead-pipe-cinch certain I know what I am going to be doing on one November evening.

I will be watching midterm election returns from my North Texas home. Election Day is Nov. 8. Some Texas school districts are taking that day off, telling students and teachers there won’t be class that day. Why? They want those who are eligible to vote to be sure to do so, which strikes me as being about as close to declaring Election Day an official holiday as anything I have seen so far.

Regular readers of this blog know of my partisan leaning. To anyone who is unaware, I will disclose that I want Democrats to fend off the Republican “red wave” that everyone was predicting would swamp Congress.

Spoiler alert: Republicans aren’t quite so smug these days. There has been some actual out-loud discussion that suggests Democrats could be in position to maintain — and possibly increase — their control of the Senate.

And get a load of this: At least one bellwether U.S. House race ended Tuesday with the Democrat edging a Republican opponent for a New York congressional seat that everyone this side of House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy thought was going to be swept up by the Republican.

What gives? Speculation is that the Supreme Court decision to overturn the landmark abortion ruling has energized pro-choice voters to, um, actually vote.

What’s driving this apparent change? Democrats have scored some legislative successes and are finally able to nationalize local races the way Republicans have been so successful at doing.

Plus, Republicans have fielded some certifiable dunderheads for public office, particularly in the Senate. Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania (or is it New Jersey?), Herschel Walker in Georgia, J.D. Vance in Ohio and Lord knows who else is out there making an ass of himself or herself in front of voters.

What about the House lineup? Democrats hold a slim majority there, but the chatter is beginning to build that they well might be able to fend off that red wave … even in the House!

I cannot yet buy into the Democrats’ optimism about the House. The Senate does seem to look more promising for those of us who fear what could happen if the GOP takes command of both congressional chambers.

Vengeance appears to be at the top of Republican minds. Which tells me that governance would grind to a halt.

If Democrats can persuade enough voters over the course of the next few weeks what would ensue if the GOP grabs control of Capitol Hill, well … we might have a fun night of TV watching ahead of us.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Clock is ticking, 1/6 panel

U.S. House Select Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson doesn’t need unsolicited advice from little ol’ me on how he does his business.

Too bad. I am going to give him some anyway.

Mr. Chairman, I am acutely aware that the clock is ticking on your 1/6 investigation. Which makes me implore you to get your probe done sooner rather than later.

You must ignore the happy talk among Democrats who have stars in their eyes and who are thinking they can retain control of the House after the congressional midterm election. The fate of the Senate is another matter. The House, though, remains vulnerable to a Republican takeover of leadership of that legislative chamber.

That means if the committee’s work is unfinished when the new Congress convenes in January, the new Republican leadership is going to scuttle every damn thing the panel did. It will toss all the evidence it has collected implicating Donald Trump in the insurrection and his effort to deny the peaceful transfer of power to the Biden administration.

A new GOP House speaker is going to launch investigations of his own into the panel’s conduct. There might even be efforts to impeach Attorney General Merrick Garland. Believe this, too: The Trump cultists who comprise the Republican Party will have vengeance on their minds if they seize control of the House.

I say all this to remind the chairman that he has to finish the committee’s work sometime this fall. The committee is set to reopen the public hearings next month with a new round of witnesses. They are likely to add even more evidence to the growing pile of it already gathered through hours of public and private testimony.

The panel might ask former Vice President Mike Pence to testify. Fine. Do it and then get him to spill whatever beans he can under oath.

Look, Mr. Chairman, time is not your friend. It is your relentless enemy as you seek to finish your work, compile a report and present it to us — and to the attorney general.

He must not be deterred by whatever blowback he gets from the diehard cultists who stand with the insurrectionist in chief. They have loud voices, but so do the rest of us who want to make sure those who are responsible are held to account for the dastardly deeds they launched against the government they all swore an oath to protect, preserve and defend.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news, national news

Defund the FBI?

The right-wing extremists — the QAnon adherents and election deniers — need to be committed, sent to the nut house and left to fester in the dark.

These are the cretins who are calling for Congress to “defund the FBI” in the wake of the agency’s search of Donald Trump’s home in Florida for classified documents that Trump took from the White House when he left office in January 2021.

This is simply an astonishing thing to hear from those who proclaim to be “patriots” who believe in “law and order” and who declare that they are friends and allies of those who enforce our laws.

My … goodness.

Patriotic Americans wouldn’t vilify government agents who were acting on lawful orders. Nor would they attack law enforcement officers — such as what occurred on 1/6. Moreover, no friend or ally of police would ever present physical threats of harm to those who occupy the thin blue line that protects American society.

One Republican congressional candidate has actually said that Attorney General Merrick Garland should be executed. Can you believe that? Oh, sure you can! Why? Because it’s becoming part of the GOP mantra.

It’s disgraceful.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

You go, Liz … but only so far

I listened this morning to Liz Cheney explain why she remains adamant in her opposition to Donald J. Trump and why she intends to keep fighting to keep the ex-president far away from the White House.

I am all in on her effort to keep Trump out of the people’s house.

Then came some questions from ABC News’s Jon Karl, who wanted to know whether she is going to run for president in 2024 in an effort to forestall Trump’s possible nomination. She didn’t take the bait. That’s OK. I wouldn’t, either.

However, she reminded me once again why, despite the courage she is showing in fighting Trump, I generally oppose virtually all her political views.

She reiterated her stance as a pro-life, pro-gun, anti-tax Republican. She didn’t say it, but she did vote in favor of Trump’s agenda more than 93% of the time he was in office.

If Liz Cheney, who lost her Wyoming congressional GOP primary race this past week, is dedicated to keeping Trump out of power, then I’m all for it … and for her effort.

If lightning were to strike and Cheney gets nominated by Republicans in 2024, well … that’s where my admiration ends.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news

Goodbye, Louis Gohmert … don’t hurry back!

Louis Gohmert is the lamest of ducks. That’s the good news. Even better news is that he isn’t likely to return to Congress, where he didn’t exactly distinguish himself as a legislative giant.

Instead, Gohmert — a looney-bin Republican from Tyler — set himself apart as a gadfly and someone who is all too willing to foment The Big Lie about the 2020 presidential election.

Hey, that’s not the only Big Lie to which Gohmert attached his name. Gohmert was among those in Congress who once doubted whether Barack Obama was qualified to for president of the United States. He cited that phony notion that President Obama was born in Kenya, despite proof that the 44th POTUS was born in Hawaii.

Part of congressmen’s and women’s greatness must rest in the number of laws with their names on it. Gohmert authored one bill that became law. That’s it.

He spent the rest of his time in Congress acting like the royal pain in the ass he became.

Louie Gohmert leaves Congress with one law and many falsehoods | The Texas Tribune

Gohmert decided to run for Texas attorney general and finished last in the Republican Party primary this spring. Too bad, Louis.

I wish Gohmert’s leaving the political scene signaled a new day in Texas politics. I fear it won’t. There remain too many GOP loons out there ready to step up and take his place as a leader of the nut job wing of a once-great political party.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Wyoming = cult playground

Who would have thought Wyoming — one of the most Republican-leaning of our 50 states — would serve as a petri dish to examine what has become of a once-great political party.

Its sole member of the House, Liz Cheney, got hammered in the GOP primary, losing to Harriet Hageman by more than 30 percentage points. Hageman had earned the endorsement of the Cult Leader in Chief, Donald Trump. Why would the former POTUS go against a House member — Liz Cheney — who voted with him more than 93% of the time? Because Cheney voted to impeach Trump after he incited the 1/6 insurrection.

Let’s look briefly at Cheney’s electoral history in Wyoming.

  • She was elected in 2016 with more than 60% of the vote.
  • Cheney won re-election in 2018 by an even greater margin and then was named House Republican Conference chair, putting her third in line in power behind GOP leader Kevin McCarthy and GOP whip Steve Scalise.
  • Cheney won the GOP nomination in 2020 with 73% of the vote and the general election with a 69% margin.
  • Then came the 2022 Hageman/Trump cult buzzsaw.

Now she’s out … or will be by the end of the year.

The only thing Cheney did “wrong” was to turn against Trump, who has captured the hearts, minds and what passes for the “soul” of the Republican Party, which he has transformed into a cult cabal.

Wyoming has served up the perfect test case for what is wrong with the Grand Old Party.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Don’t walk away, Liz Cheney

Right-wing media commentators have been roughing up one of their own recently and it isn’t a pretty sight.

U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney, a Wyoming Republican and Donald Trump’s No. 1 political enemy, got thrashed in this week’s GOP primary. What has been the reaction from some in the conservative media?

They are calling on her to resign from the House now, step away from her role on the House select 1/6 committee and, in effect, keep her mouth shut.

She should do none of that. Cheney’s term in office expires at the end of this year, which means this good-government progressive wants her stay on her watch and continue to hold Trump accountable for the crimes he committed while inciting the 1/6 insurrection.

To be sure, I believe Cheney inflated the significance of her primary defeat by comparing her fate to what happened to the father of the Republican Party, America’s greatest president Abraham Lincoln.

Lincoln lost two congressional contests before being elected president in 1860, Cheney reminded us, as if to suggest that her own congressional loss might signal her ascent to the White House in the future.

She is getting way ahead of herself.

However, I do not for one instant believe she should step away. Cheney is providing a valuable voice of reason where few of them exist within her GOP.  Moreover, she is performing valuable service as vice chair of the committee led by Mississippi Democrat Bennie Thompson.

My advice to Rep. Cheney? Stay the course. Wyoming voters elected her to serve until the end of 2022. She has more work to do on behalf of the effort to preserve, protect and defend our precious democratic process.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com