political news

GOP takeover doesn’t necessarily doom Democrats

As I watch the political landscape take shape heading into the 2022 midterm election, I cannot help but think of what happened in 2010.

What’s that, you ask? Here’s what happened.

President Barack Obama took office in 2009 and got to work repairing the economic free-fall that was occurring while getting Congress to approve the Affordable Care Act.

Congress spent a ton of money to fix the economy and it approved the ACA by a narrow margin. The 2010 midterm election loomed. Republicans were loaded for bear. They delivered what Obama said was a “shellacking” by taking control of the House of Representatives.

President Obama wasn’t disheartened. He ran for re-election in 2012 and with the wind blowing in his face, he defeated Mitt Romney by a comfortable margin.

Obama’s approval rating wasn’t ever all that great. Yet he served two successful terms as POTUS.

Now comes President Biden facing the wrath of voters. The GOP might be poised to deliver another pounding to the president and his party next year. Does that mean the end of the Biden presidency? Does it deliver a mortal wound to his agenda? Does it set the stage for a Republican victory in 2024? No, no and no!

I will hold out hope that the GOP in its current configuration — the party has turned into a cabal of cultists — will turn off enough voters to forestall any more coup attempts such as the one launched by the most recent Republican POTUS.

Let us hope for the best … shall we?

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

VPOTUS fighting back

Vice President Kamala Harris has been for years an inviting target for right-wing pundits and politicians.

So it comes as no surprise to yours truly that she now is being separated from the rest of the Biden administration and singled out for criticism that she is “underutilized,” that her office is in disarray and is dysfunctional and that President Biden is ignoring her best advice.

Hmm. Do you think perhaps there is some rumbling and grumbling out there that she might become the Democrats’ next best hope for the presidency? That perhaps she might seek to succeed President Biden if the incumbent decides to leave office after a single term?

Harris is answering the critics. She contends that all the tittering and chatter is just that and that she is a functioning member of the Biden team.

I get that some of the reporting on alleged discontent comes from mainstream media outlets, such as CNN and Politico. The reporting does feed, though, into the right-wing distortion machine that inflates any negative-sounding report into something unrecognizable.

President Biden has said he intends to run for re-election next time. I dislike the word “intend,” as it leaves too much for room for someone to change his or her mind. If he does, then my hope would be that he wins re-election in 2024.

If not, I believe the president has a fully capable partner in Vice President Harris. If only she could stop the rumor mill from grinding her to pieces.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news, State news

Littering needs strict punishment

LAKE TAWAKONI STATE PARK, Texas — We trudged along a trail beside a true Texas treasure and found a single piece of litter.

It was a beer bottle.

My wife picked it up and we tossed in a nearby Dumpster … which brings me to the point of this brief blog post.

The Dumpster was within easy walking distance of where the dipsh** had walked. Moreover, the bottle was about, oh, 10 or 12 feet off the trail, which tells me the idiot who left it there flung it where I would presume he thought no one would see it.

My wife and I are huge fans of the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department and the state parks it administers for us. We enjoy our state parks system, which we consider to be one of the high points of a state government that quite often gets battered with criticism over bonehead policies.

We have no qualms about the state parks and in infuriates to the maximum degree when we see evidence of others abusing the parks in the manner we discovered when we picked up the beer bottle left behind by the nimrod who walked along the trail.

I think an appropriate sentence for anyone littering in that fashion ought to be a four-figure fine and a life sentence of community service … preferably working on a cleanup crew at our state parks.

Yeah, that’s harsh. It’s just how I feel.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Shut up, Matt Gaetz!

Leave it to a Florida flamethrower congressman to inject himself into a story that doesn’t deserve to be politicized any more than it already has become.

Matt Gaetz, a Republican (of course!), says his office is open to hiring Kyle Rittenhouse, the 18-year-old on trial in Kenosha, Wisc., for shooting two men to death during a protest over Black Lives Matter, as a congressional intern if he is acquitted of charges filed against him.

This clown Gaetz just continues to infuriate me. Never mind that he’s been associated with individuals connected with sex trafficking involving underage girls, but … well, that’s another story.

Now this?

Shut the hell up, Matt. You just pi** me off!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national security

Party of ‘truth’?

1 Comment

Chris Christie might run for president in 2024. He also has written a book on how he believes the Republican Party, of which he is a member, can redeem itself.

The former New Jersey governor says the GOP must become “the party of truth.” And the “party of solutions.” He has written a book that explains why he believes what he does.

Wow! How can I plow through this.

The once-Grand Old Party has become the party of lies, deception, conspiracy theories. How it reverts itself, or squirms out of the grip of the 45th POTUS is beyond me. Yet that is what Chris Christie wants to see happen.

Good luck, governor, with that tall task.

Donald Trump has so perverted the party, it might take a generation or three to get itself back on track. The biggest obstacle to that occurring happens to be that most Republicans have bought into the Big Lie that Trump has been telling about the 2020 election, that it was “stolen” from him through “widespread voter fraud.” Umm, no. It wasn’t stolen.

I wish Gov. Christie well on his effort. I don’t plan to switch allegiances if he succeeds. I just want the GOP to rid itself of the cult following that has developed with POTUS 45. I want there to be two viable political parties arguing policy, philosophy and what is good for the nation we all love.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

State news

Beto vs. Abbott shaping up

Oh, my … forgive me for referring to former West Texas congressman Beto O’Rourke by just his first name in this headline, which in reality is a nickname. It just sounds cool.

Still, he and the man he hopes to defeat in 2022 are serious men. My hope is that O’Rourke and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott don’t tack too far to the left or right as they seek to curry favor with most Texas voters.

I have declared myself to be a “good government progressive,” which I intend to mean that I am not opposed to compromise if it produces sound legislation and law.

Abbott has veered to the far right since the start of the 2021 Legislature. I dislike his right-wing views. O’Rourke has appealed to the far left since losing a U.S. Senate race by just a little in 2018 and then flamed out in a 2020 bid for the Democratic Party presidential nomination. To be candid, I am not comfortable with the progressives’ agenda.

I am not sure that most Texans are comfortable with far left or far right politics. There is out here, in the words of the late Colin Powell, a “vast middle ground.” I hope O’Rourke and Abbott find themselves arguing for that middle-of-the-road avenue.

As the Dallas Morning News noted in its editorial today, the state will be better off for it.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

State news

Curious juxtaposition on guns

A headline in the Texas Tribune had me scratchin’ my noggin.

It asked: Beto O’Rourke went after assault rifles in his run for president. Will that hurt him with gun-loving Texans?

Well, that poses a quandary, don’t you think? Of course it does! But here’s the deal as I see it. I consider myself to be a “gun-loving Texan.” I own a couple of rifles, both of which are keepsakes given to me when I was a boy by my father. One of them is a single-shot .22-caliber rifle; the other is a 30.06 that carries a five-round magazine.

Neither of them is an assault weapon. I love my guns, even though I rarely shoot them.

Back to the Tribune’s question: I fear that O’Rourke’s statement about assault weapons is going to hurt him among many Texans who profess to love their guns, but who in reality love owning — or love the prospect of owning — weapons designed to kill human beings in rapid fashion on a battlefield.

The question came to O’Rourke during a 2020 Democratic primary presidential debate. He had said “hell yes!” he wanted to take people’s assault rifles. I did not in that moment believe he intended to send agents to my home and confiscate my two cherished rifles.

The crazy crowd among us no doubt is going to interpret O’Rourke’s statement in 2020 as a clarion call to disarm us all. You can bet your last bandolier that Gov. Greg Abbott is going to play on that fear as he seeks to paint O’Rourke as a commie sympathizer intent on destroying the Second Amendment to our Constitution.

Will Beto O’Rourke’s stance on guns hurt him in 2022’s Texas governor race? | The Texas Tribune

Let’s get ready for a rough campaign.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Why the delay and obstruction?

 (AP Photo/Jeffrey Phelps)

This has to rank, in my mind at least, as one of the great political mysteries in recent U.S. history.

Donald J. Trump keeps insisting he did nothing wrong while serving as POTUS for four years. He made a “perfect” phone call to the Ukrainian president asking for help in finding dirt on then-former VP Joe Biden and his son, Hunter. He insists he didn’t incite violence on 1/6, that he called for “peaceful” protest.

And yet …

This clown is engaging in the mother of stalling tactics. His minions won’t answer congressional subpoenas. Trump refuses to release his tax returns. He stalls, blocks, obfuscates. He is trying to run out the clock until the midterm election when, he hopes, Republicans get control of Congress.

Why this tactic if there is nothing to hide? If there is nothing see? If there was nothing wrong with the way he conducted himself in office?

Man, someone has to explain this one to me.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

medical news

Not your call, Okie National Guard

Let’s look briefly at an astonishing defiance of the commander in chief, OK?

The Oklahoma National Guard command has declared that its soldiers do not have to adhere to Defense Department requirements for vaccination against the COVID-19 virus.

This is a seriously wrong-headed call.

The National Guard is part of the U.S. military apparatus. Thus, it is under the command of — here it comes — the commander in chief, the president of the United States of America. The current commander in chief, President Biden, has declared that members of the military are required to be vaccinated against the virus, unless they have a valid military of religious exemption.

The commander in chief, therefore, has issued a lawful order. Those who serve the commander in chief are obligated under military law to obey such orders or else face the consequences.

The Oklahoma National Guard, accordingly, is seeking to disobey that lawful order.

It won’t work.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

State news

O’Rourke faces red tide

Photo by Richard W. Rodriguez/AP/REX/Shutterstock

I have to agree with the assessment being kicked around that Beto O’Rourke’s decision to run for Texas governor in 2022 carries far greater risk than his near-victory in 2018 in a race for the U.S. Senate.

Why is that? Because the incumbent Republican he is challenging this time, Greg Abbott, is far more likable and is in a politically stronger place than the GOP incumbent he faced in 2018, Ted Cruz.

O’Rourke came within 3% of grounding the Cruz Missile. Polls show him trailing Abbott narrowly this time (so far). However, his 2020 Democratic Party primary presidential bid ended badly and he said some things about guns that are going to haunt him when he hits the trail in Texas.

He said that “hell yes” he would take people’s assault rifles. Abbott has morphed that statement into “Beto will take your guns.” That won’t hurt him in gun-happy Texas? Yeah. It will.

I wish O’Rourke well as he campaigns for governor. I want him to win bigly. I want Abbott to be shown the door and for Abbott to disappear from the political stage.

I wonder about whether Beto O’Rourke’s time has arrived — yet again! — for him to stage the kind of political upset that many of us desire to see happen.

Beto O’Rourke enters 2022 a weaker candidate with a harder race | The Texas Tribune

Abbott has said “bring it!” when talking about O’Rourke’s candidacy. Fine, but O’Rourke also will have plenty with which to work.

Abbott’s miserable pandemic response, his support of an overly harsh ban on abortion, his support of efforts to suppress voters in Texas all can become the stuff of snappy campaign ads. Indeed, Abbott must be made to answer for all of it and I hope O’Rourke — presuming he wins the Democratic Party primary next spring — will make the governor answer.

Let’s be clear on one point. Beto O’Rourke faces a steep climb.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

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