Tag Archives: GOP

crime news

Why seek pardons?

Let’s call ’em the Six Musketeers. What do they have in common, other than being Republican members of Congress?

They asked their one-time cult leader/guru/top-shelf liar in chief for a blanket pardon before he left office.

This begs a serious question. Why would a member of Congress seek a presidential pardon if they were damn sure they were innocent of any crimes related to the 1/6 insurrection that occurred two weeks before Donald Trump vacated the White House?

Hmm. Well, you know their names. Here they are anyway.

Louis Gohmert, Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Mo Brooks, Andy Biggs, Scott Perry. 

Their names surfaced during this past week’s televised hearing of the 1/6 House select committee that is examining the issues that led to the attack on our nation’s Capitol Building … when Congress was convened to count Electoral College votes and then certify the election of President Biden.

These six clowns — two of whom, Gohmert of Texas and Brooks of Alabama, are leaving Congress at the end of the year — all allegedly engaged in some of the law-breaking committed by The Donald in his quest to remain in power. Except they deny doing anything wrong. Really?

My favorite among them is Greene, who had just been elected to her Georgia congressional seat in November 2020. My goodness, she had just taken her oath of office three days before the insurrection. So it took her no time at all to sink herself up to her armpits in the sleaze being peddled by Trump and the rest of his Corps of Cultists … allegedly.

This is the clown show that the cult followers insist we return to power in Washington, D.C. It is instead an act that needs to be run out of town.

The House select committee is going to resume its hearings soon after doing some more sleuthing around for more evidence to deliver us in a final report. Maybe it can uncover some more crooks who sought pre-emptive pardons for crimes they say they didn’t commit.

What a load of crap!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Political perversion at its worst

The political perversion that is underway within what passes for the Republican Party cannot be illustrated more plainly than what well might happen to one of the party’s stalwarts in an upcoming GOP primary election.

Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming stands front and center among Republicans in her opposition to the lawlessness demonstrated by Donald J. Trump — particularly during the final weeks of his administration as POTUS.

Because of her fealty to the Constitution and the oath she took to protect and defend it, Cheney is facing the wrath of the Trumpkins who populate her party in Wyoming. She is running for re-election this year and has drawn stiff opposition within her party; Trump has endorsed one of Cheney’s rivals. Why? Because she believes in the rule of law and believes that Trump has violated that tenet by his re-telling of The Big Lie about why he lost the 2020 presidential election.

Cheney is as stalwart a conservative Republican as anyone in the House of Representatives. None of that matters to the Trumpkins who have censured her and effectively declared her to be persona non grata within the Wyoming GOP.

That’s because she refuses to profess her loyalty to Donald Trump.

This is a shameful perversion of principle and of the oath all members of Congress take when they enter the People’s House.

I am not going to predict that Cheney will lose her primary fight when the balloting occurs in Wyoming. I’ve seen the various polls and will admit that it doesn’t look good for her future.

I also must stipulate once more that she is not my favorite Republican serving in Congress. She is too conservative for my taste, which illustrates why these attacks on her anger me so much.

I guess, therefore, the political perversion is complete when a member of Congress with whom I have fundamental philosophical disagreements can win my support on the basis of her rage at a president who embodies all that is wrong with today’s Republican Party.

Go figure.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

State news

All together now: No secession for Texas!

Let’s all say this together, shall we? Texas cannot — under the law — secede from the United States of America!

Texas tried that once. It didn’t work out. We joined several other southern states to go to war with the United States because slave owners wanted to maintain the right to own fellow human beings as property. The Civil War came to an end in April 1865 and Congress wrote a law that prohibited secession. Period, man!

That didn’t dissuade the Texas Republican Party, though, from delivering a resolution at the end of its conference in Houston this past weekend that calls for a statewide referendum aimed at “achieving Texas independence.”

I have declared already that the Texas GOP has gone ’round the bend. This resolution only strengthens my argument.

The secession argument keeps rearing its disgusting head whenever right-wingers get pi**ed off about something, or anything! They want to remove the state from the clutches of federal control, believing foolishly that the state can solve its own problems.

“It is now time that the People of Texas are allowed the right to decide their own future,” state Rep. Kyle Biedermann, R-Fredericksburg, said in a statement announcing the resolution at the GOP conference.

The Texas Tribune reports: “The legality of seceding is problematic,” Eric McDaniel, associate professor of government at the University of Texas at Austin, told The Texas Tribune in 2016. “The Civil War played a very big role in establishing the power of the federal government and cementing that the federal government has the final say in these issues.”

Texas can’t secede from the U.S. Here’s why. | The Texas Tribune

Yeah, a “very big role,” indeed.

The Confederacy committed the ultimate act of treason in declaring war on the U.S. government. The Civil War cost the nation more than 600,000 lives in the bloodiest conflict in its history.

President Lincoln’s second inaugural speech in March 1865 — a month before he would be assassinated — declared his intention to heal the wounds that ripped the nation apart. “With malice toward none and charity for all,” he said, the nation must move forward together.

Now we hear from the lunatics of Abraham Lincoln’s own Republican Party wanting to secede once again. Why? Because they don’t want the feds setting the rules all Americans must follow.

Do you see what I mean, therefore, about how nuts today’s Republican Party has become?

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Uncategorized

Pulling for Democrats

I cannot hide my partisan leanings, so I won’t even try to pretend I am so politically neutral that I don’t care which political party wins control of policy making in my state.

Truth is, I do care. I am tired of Republican Party vise-grip control of policy in Texas. I might not mind so much about whether the GOP maintains control of state government, except that today’s Republican Party bears practically no resemblance to the party of the late former Gov. Bill Clements and the late U.S. Sen. John Tower.

Clements and Tower personified what has been called “establishment Republicanism.” These days, establishment GOP pols have become targets of epithets hurled at them by the MAGA crowd of cultists who adhere to the phony populism of Donald J. Trump. MAGA fanatics call these real Republicans, RINOs … Republicans in Name Only.

Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Attorney General Ken Paxton are three amigos in pushing forward the MAGA agenda that seeks ostensibly to “make America great again.’

Earth to MAGA cultists: The MAGA mantra means nothing to me. America is great. It has been a great nation for far longer than I arrived on this good Earth.

The race for Texas governor is drawing a good bit of national attention. Democrat Beto O’Rourke is making his second run for statewide office in the past four years. He came close to defeating Ted Cruz in the 2018 race for U.S. Senate. Then he ran for president in 2020 and flamed out. Now he’s up once more … it might be his final run for statewide office.

I want Beto O’Rourke to defeat Gov. Abbott, who has been a terrible disappointment to me as the state’s chief executive.

Furthermore, I want to declare that my weariness of Republican Party dominance of public policy is no invitation for Democrats to veer too far off the mainstream middle ground that demands that many Texans are demanding to have their concerns heard, too.

It’s clear to me that Republicans aren’t listening to the vast middle ground. I consider myself to be a good-government progressive, which I believe requires plenty of compromise to find common ground.

Thus, we have an election coming up that could swing the state significantly away from the nastiness we see too often from Republican political leaders. May it come true.

Johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

 

State news

Cruz: loathsome to the max

There is no way for me to deny what I have believed firmly since the day Ted Cruz took office in 2013 as a U.S. Republican senator representing my family and me in Texas.

It is that he is the most loathsome politician I can think of this side of, say, Donald John Trump.

Cruz continues to make gurgling noises about wanting to run for president in 2024. He tried it once already, in 2016, He remained the last man standing in a crowded field that eventually succumbed to the cult following that gathered around Trump.

He once called Trump a “sniveling coward.” He then climbed aboard the Trump hay wagon, where he’s been sitting ever since.

The latest capper — gosh, there have been so many low points in this clown’s Senate career — is still unfolding. The lunatic shot up Robb Elementary School in Uvalde. He killed 19 precious children and two of their teachers. President Biden is trying to rally a grief-stricken nation to “do something” about gun violence.

Cruz’s response? He bloviates that the “radical Democrats” are seeking to “disarm Americans.” Oh, and then the rat boasts about his visit to Uvalde “the day after the shooting.” Big … deal!

The moron has zero public standing with me on that one, given how he hightailed it out of Texas in February 2021 while Texans were freezing to death in that horrific winter blast. Where was Ted? Basking in the sun with his family in Cancun!

I am sick and tired of this clown masquerading as a responsible public official when he is nothing more than a self-serving frontrunner seeking to further his own agenda.

Someone will have to show me a single piece of meaningful legislation with Cancun Ted’s name on it. Anyone?

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news

Hoping for return of two-party struggle

There once was a time when I first arrived in Texas — nearly four decades ago — when I lamented how the overpowering strength of the Democratic Party in the region where I lived and worked had lessened the quality of political debate.

I believed at the time of my arrival in the Golden Triangle in early 1984 that Democrats took that region for granted. I don’t recall a lot of creative or critical thinking among the local pols. Their appeal to the union-dominated work force in Beaumont, Port Arthur and Orange was rock solid.

Over time, and it didn’t take that many years, Republicans began making headway into the roster of elected offices in the Golden Triangle. Indeed, the entire state was tilting toward the Republican Party.

The GOP picked off statewide offices one at a time. The last Democrat to hold a statewide office was John Sharp, the comptroller of public accounts. Sharp left that office in 1998.

It’s been a Republican show ever since. The GOP holds every single constitutional office in Texas. The Republican grip has been ironclad.

I find myself wishing the same thing I discovered upon my arrival in Texas nearly 40 years ago. I want a return to two-party governance, with both parties flexing muscles and challenging the other side to defend their positions with vigor.

There’s a bit of a difference, though, between the GOP dominance today and the Democrats’ former dominance. The Republican Party has gone bonkers. I recall that Democrats in the good old days at least governed with a semblance of humanity and common sense. The 21st-century Republican Party adheres to that phony populism espoused by the carnival barker who managed to get elected president in 2016.

Accordingly, the quality of political debate in Texas has swirled down the drain just as it has in many other parts of the country.

Is this the year that Democrats might peel off an elected office or two held by Republicans seemingly since The Flood? I won’t make that prediction.

I merely am going to lament the absence of a vigorous two-party governing system in the state I now call home. May the Democratic Party find its voice … and I hope it is soon.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Let’s wait on the political obit

Before we start dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s on President Biden’s political obituary in the wake of the upcoming midterm election, let’s revisit a couple of recent historical events … hmm?

President Clinton won election in 1992. The midterm election occurred in 1994 and you know what happened. Republicans took control of both congressional chambers for the first time in 40 years. They flipped dozens of House seats. Newt Gingrich became speaker.

What happened in the 1996 presidential election? Clinton won re-election in an Electoral College landslide.

OK, now let’s look quickly at what occurred in 2010. President Obama took office after the 2008 election. He had a Democratic Party majority in Congress. Then the 2010 midterm occurred. Republicans delivered what Obama called a “shellacking.” The GOP took control of Congress.

Oh, but wait! The 2012 election ended with President Obama winning re-election. The margin for Obama wasn’t as impressive as the victory scored by President Clinton.

So here we are today. President Biden and Democrats are facing strong headwinds moving toward this year’s midterm election. Republicans are poised to seize control of both congressional chambers. If they do, they will follow historical precedent.

Is that the end of the line for Joe Biden? Nope, not even …

You see, today’s GOP is now populated by election deniers, followers of the Big Lie fomented by the Liar in Chief. The GOP is fully capable of messing up what the voters appear ready to grant them, which is control of the legislative branch of government.

Given the quality of the rhetoric coming from the cultist who leads the Republican Party and the blind fealty to his blathering that his followers exhibit, I am betting President Biden and the Democrats won’t surrender anything.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Loony bin wing strikes back

The loony bin wing of the Republican Party comprises two Texas congressmen who were among just nine House members to vote against legislation that aims to fast-track baby formula which — you likely have heard — is in critically short supply.

Reps. Louie Gohmert of Tyler and Chip Roy of Austin voted “no” on a bill that seeks to grant women on federal assistance greater access to the formula.

Texas is among the worst-hit states in this current crisis. President Biden has just invoked the Defense Production Act to facilitate delivery of the formula to families with infants.

The Texas Tribune was unable to obtain a comment from Gohmert. Roy delivered a message. The Tribune reported: “The only way to get more formula to American families is to fix the crony policies that prevent more U.S. companies from producing it, remove barriers to innovation, and allow imports from trusted nations; the legislation Democrats put forward does none of that,” he said. Calling the Biden administration “demonstrably incompetent,” he called the shortage “the direct result of unnecessary federal regulations and of a bloated bureaucracy that failed to recognize the problem before it spiraled out of control.”

Two Texas Republicans vote no on bill to help poor mothers get formula | The Texas Tribune

Well, Congress was able to act in that rare bipartisan fashion to approve the legislation, no thanks to the stubbornness of two Texas Republicans.

Shame on them.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Step aside, Texas GOP

Texas Republicans have taken their share of hits from critics over the quality of the candidates they nominate for public office.

I am going to pronounce at this moment that the Texas GOP has been eclipsed in the loony bin category of political nut jobs by their colleagues in Pennsylvania, where a true-blue 2020 election denier has been nominated to run for governor of that great state.

Doug Mastriano is now the GOP nominee Pennsylvania governor. He served in the state senate. His foe this fall will be Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, the Democrat who ran unopposed in his state’s primary.

Far-right election denier Mastriano wins GOP race for governor in Pennsylvania (msn.com)

Mastriano, to be brutally candid, is a seriously dangerous man to run one of the nation’s most populous and important states.

He believes President Biden and Democrats stole the 2020 election from Donald Trump. He would get to appoint the next secretary of state in Pennsylvania and would be likely to find a fellow denier to lead that state’s election in 2024.

He tried to get fake Trump electors seated for the certification of the 2020 results in Pennsylvania; Biden won the state’s electoral votes, but Mastriano sought to overturn those results.

Oh … my.

I now will declare my own preference for Pennsylvania governor. Josh Shapiro must win to preserve the rule of law and to save the democratic process in one of the states where it all began in the United States of America.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Headed to Land of Oz?

Pennsylvania’s Republican Party voters appear to be punching their tickets for a trip to the Land of Oz. God help them!

Mehmet Oz is leading — albeit barely — over Dave McCormick in the GOP primary balloting for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Republican Pat Toomey, who is retiring.

I won’t spend a lot of time on this nonsense, given Oz’s lack of credentials or credibility. He got the endorsement from Donald J. Trump for reasons that have nothing to do with public policy. Trump likes celebrities, and Oz fits that description.

I consider Oz, once a practicing physician, to be a quack. Trump thinks he’s the greatest.

I am going to pull hard for Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, who won the Democratic primary easily, to defeat the GOP winner. Whether it’s Oz or McCormick, it matters little. They’re both repugnant.

If it’s Oz, then Fetterman can start with the fact that Oz doesn’t even live in the state he wants to represent in the Senate. He’ll figure out the rest of it.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com