Tag Archives: GOP

crime news, legal news, local news, national news, State news

Nothing to brag about here, Texas

Well now, it turns out Texas is No. 1 in a category of states that should bring plenty of shame.

Texas has more Oath Keepers members than any other state in the Union. Who are the Oath Keepers? This is one of the groups involved in inciting the 1/6 insurrection against the government, the attack that sought to block the certification of the 2020 presidential election … the one that Donald Trump lost fair and square to Joe Biden.

Oh, but there’s more.

Among the more than 3,300 Texans listed as members of Oath Keepers, some of ’em are law enforcement officers. They include two constables and four chiefs of police.

The findings come from the Anti-Defamation League, an organization dedicated to rooting out evil among us. They have hit the mother lode when it comes to Texas’ involvement in the Oath Keepers, many of whom were photographed prancing through the Capitol on 1/6 carrying Confederate flags and shouting “Hang Mike Pence!”

Hey, you want more? Try this: One of the constables serves a precinct in Collin County, where I live with other members of my family. When I saw the Collin County connection to this far-right-wing group of fruitcakes, my thought turned immediately to a gentleman I have gotten to know — who happens to be a constable in Collin County.

My friend ain’t that guy. What’s more, you know of course that constables in Texas also happen to be elected politicians who run for the office either as Democrats or Republicans.

For the record, the Collin County constable associated with the Oath Keepers is Joe Wright, who serves Precinct 4. Constable Wright has some explaining to do to his constituents who might be concerned about this fellow’s link to an organization involved in one of the darkest days in U.S. history.

More than 3,300 Texans were members of the Oath Keepers, report says | The Texas Tribune

This is a strange turn that makes me decidedly not proud of the state where my wife and I chose to relocate more than 38 years ago.

I consider the Oath Keepers to be replete with traitors.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

State news

What does he favor?

We elect our legislators to, um, legislate. Isn’t that the rule of thumb? Sure it is.

However, when I see U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz’s name, the junior Republican from Texas usually is telling us what he opposes. The guy cannot affix his name to any constructive legislation, which is why he pulls down that six-figure salary.

Cruz said today that he opposes legislation codifying same-sex marriage. He said it violates Americans’ religious freedom. I’m not sure I get it, but that’s what Cruz said.

Back to my point. Cruz won election to the Senate in 2012. He hasn’t distinguished himself as an author of legislation that benefits American lives. He continues to rail as a gadfly, raising hell and calling Democrats and sons and daughters of Satan.

That’s when he isn’t seeking to get away from doing his job, which is what happened when he sought a vacation in Cancun in February 2021 while Texas were freezing to death in the killer winter freeze.

Ted Cruz just pisses me off.

There. Now I feel better.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Joe Biden, national news, national security, political news

Why the hysterical response?

Am I imagining it or is the right-wing cabal of alleged political thinkers acting as if the president of the United States might have hit ’em where they hurt?

President Biden took some national TV time the other evening to blame the “MAGA Republicans” who comprise a shrinking but still significant portion of a once-grand old party for stealing the “soul of the nation.” He also called them a threat to democracy because of their constant threats of violence and their insistence that the 2020 presidential election was the result of “widespread voter fraud.”

The right-wingers have fired back with both barrels. They accuse Biden of inciting division himself. They call him the worst president in history. They excoriate him for offending “half the country” that still supports Donald Trump; actually, it ain’t half, but instead is a significant — but dwindling — minority of Americans who still swallow the swill that Trump is serving.

The hysterical response suggests to me that President Biden has told ’em the truth. Or, as President “Give “em Hell Harry” Truman might say, “He told them the truth and they just think it’s hell.”

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news, political news

Democrats get big gust of wind from the Arctic

Whoever in the world would have thought that Democrats — already feeling energized as the midterm election approaches — would get a big gust of wind in their sails … from the Arctic Circle?

Yep, that is where a Democratic candidate for Congress scored an upset over a one-time Republican darling, former half-term Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the GOP’s 2008 nominee for vice president of the United States.

Mary Peltola will take her seat in the House, succeeding the late Don Young in the state’s only U.S. House seat. Palin was thought to be a shoo-in for the post. Then they counted the votes and it turns out that Peltola got more of them than the former Sarah Barracuda.

What’s most astonishing is that Peltola becomes the first Democrat to serve in the House from Alaska since the beginning of Alaska’s statehood. Alaska is as reliably Republican as any state in the Union.

And to be brutally candid, it’s good to see Palin knocked down a peg or three from her imagined towering perch.

Palin became a sort of caricature of herself over the years, with her assorted high-profile family issues erupting here and there. She quit the governorship halfway through her first and only term in office.

I’ve always thought of Palin as an empty vessel, someone with hardly an original idea in her noggin. That the late Sen. John McCain, the GOP presidential nominee in 2008, would choose her as his running mate turned out to be one of the biggest mistakes of McCain’s long and distinguished career in public service.

Peltola now must go through a general election campaign, having knocked Palin out of the race. May the new congresswoman serve her state well. I have this feeling she’ll do so with the dignity that Palin usually was unable to find.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Weaponization anyone?

Wait just a dadgum minute. Didn’t those Republican idiots who stood up for Donald Trump accuse Democrats of “weaponizing” the impeachment process during both of the impeachments that Trump endured?

Yeah, they did. What in the name of pure partisan politics is going on now with Republicans in the House saying they’re getting ready to impeach President Biden, Attorney General Merrick Garland, Vice President Harris — and perhaps even the White House chef, for all I know — if they seize control of the House after the midterm election?

What in the world would be the basis for any of this absolute horsesh**? Is it because, um, that Biden managed to pass legislation without GOP help in Congress? Or that Garland decided to issue a lawful search warrant to find documents that Trump pilfered from secure locations in the White House? Of that Harris cast tie-breaking votes when Republicans failed to join Democrats in enacting legislation designed to help Americans?

Or — what the hell? — maybe the White House chef cooked a souffle that deflated too early?

I don’t know. I do know that whenever I hear this nonsense coming from the GOP side of the great divide on Capitol Hill, it fills me with a modicum of hope that voters across the land might be able and willing to spare us all the nightmare that awaits if the GOP takes control of Congress.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

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