Tag Archives: 2020 election

national news

How does he carry on?

I have been avoiding the use of the name of the immediate past president of the United States simply because I am sick of seeing it in print or hearing it stated on the air.

For the purpose of this post, I will forgo my boycott of his name and ask: How in the world does Donald J. Trump carry on as a former president?

He is more than likely going to be indicted for alleged criminal activity, although I am writing the word “alleged” only to be fair; I believe he is as guilty as they come.

It could come from the Manhattan, N.Y. district attorney, who has empaneled a grand jury to look into the $130,000 hush money payment to Stormy Daniels, the porn star with whom he had a one-night fling. The indictment could come from Fulton County, Ga., DA Fani Willis, who has seated a grand jury to determine whether Trump committed a crime when he demanded that the Georgia secretary of state “find” enough votes to help him win the state’s electoral votes in 2020.

Or … the indictment could come from special counsel Jack Smith, who is probing Trump’s incitement of the insurrection on 1/6 as well as the squirreling away of classified documents he took illegally from the White House upon leaving office.

Presidents usually spend their post-presidential time planning for their libraries. They take up good causes, you know … pursuing world peace, helping women find their way, being role models for our youth, working with our wounded veterans.

Trump is doing none of that. Zero. He is spending his waking hours fending off these prosecutors while seeking to run for POTUS a third time.

There won’t be an unveiling at the White House of an official portrait of Trump and his wife. There will be no official White House ceremony marking his tenure as POTUS.

Indeed, the first line of his obituary will mention either his two impeachments or his indictments … or both incidents!

The man’s legacy is shot to hell! Period!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news

Smirk gets me in trouble

GALLUP, N.M. — My dear mother would scold me when I messed up … which almost always prompted me to smirk at her.

She would get angry at my seeming indifference, telling me to “wipe that smirk off your face or else I’ll wipe it off for you.” I usually got the message.

My smirkiness got me in trouble at times when I was inducted into the Army in 1968. Our drill sergeants would get on my case for one reason or another. My reaction? That’s right: the smirk.

I am still smirking, actually laughing out loud at political statements I deem to be non-serious. The “funniest” statement I keep hearing? It’s the one that says “Democrats cheated during the2020 presidential election. Donald Trump won.”

Well … nothing could be funnier than the defamatory statements that law-abiding, faithful public servants would engineer a fake election result. And, yes, it makes me laugh.

Toby the Puppy and I are en route to the Pacific Coast, where Donald Trump isn’t held in the kind of high esteem he is in other regions of the country. We’re traveling in our pickup with its Texas license plates.

I don’t expect this to happen, but a part of me kinda/sorta expects it: Some motorist well might decide to flip me the bird as we pass on the highway.

What will I do? How will I react? I will smirk … and then laugh out loud.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news

Young man shows respect

CLINES CORNERS, N.M. — If you think today’s younger generation is going to hell, I want to tell you that I met a young man today who is being taught well by his mother.

I stopped at this tourist stop-truck stop east of Albuquerque today. I was wearing one of my ballcaps that identifies me as a Vietnam War veteran. The store was crowded; folks were jammed in there shoulder-to-shoulder.

I walked toward a young woman who was with her son, who I figure is about 12 or 13 years of age. She looked at me, noticed my cap and turned to her son and said: “What do you say to this gentleman?”

The boy looked at me and said, “Thank you for your service.”

I was, um, taken aback. I thanked the youngster, shook his hand and patted his shoulder.

I should have thanked Mom for teaching her young son to show respect for his elders. But … I let that lapse. I mean, it’s not as if she needed any affirmation from a stranger.

It was a remarkable moment, fleeting though it was. It merely confirmed what I have noted a time or two on this blog, which is that I believe we older folks are leaving this world in good hands.

***

On another matter at this very location, I was getting ready to climb back into my pickup to continue my journey west when I noticed another truck with a bumper sticker that read (get ready for it!): Trump Won Demos Cheated.

I laughed. Out loud. The driver or other occupants of the vehicle weren’t around to hear me. I wish they were around. I would have laughed even more loudly. I might even have pointed to ’em and told ’em they were nuttier than a Snickers bar.

I hereby am going offer my hope that the young man I met at this busy spot on the side of the highway will be able to dismiss the crap he sees from the grownups who still walk this Earth.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Waiting for hell to freeze

Hell will have to fall into the deepest freeze imaginable for me to accept the poll findings that suggest that Donald Trump could actually defeat President Joe Biden in a head-to-head matchup in 2024 for the White House.

For the ever-lovin’ life of me I cannot fathom where or how or who is supporting the twice-impeached former POTUS as he pretends to seek the presidency for the third time.

He slithered into the White House in 2017 after narrowly defeating Hillary Clinton while losing the popular vote by 3 million ballots. Then he got thumped by Joe Biden in 2020, garnering 7 million fewer votes than the eventual president.

Between those two elections he got impeached twice by the House for violating his oath of office. He managed to piss off damn near every ally this nation has in the world. He vilified Americans who opposed his election. He went through four White House chiefs of staff, an untold number of Cabinet officials and behaved for all the world like a moron who didn’t know what the hell he was doing with all that executive power at his disposal.

Now he is on the verge of being indicted possibly by three prosecutors, two at the state level and then the U.S. attorney general.

Oh, did I mention the insurrection he incited on 1/6? There. I just did.

And yet he remains — reportedly — the favorite for the GOP presidential nomination next year. God help us all!

Trump said he’s going the distance regardless of any indictments that end up in his lap. Fine. I am just waiting for the hammer to drop on his severely coiffed noggin.

Someone among the officials examining the crimes I believe he committed is going to make history by indicting a former POTUS for the first time in our nation’s history. Look also for the others to follow suit when the first indictment falls out of the sky.

Meanwhile, someone will have to explain to me how this clown can pretend to be a serious contender for an office he damn near destroyed during the single term he occupied it.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

media news

Take Fox off the air?

I am beginning to lean in the direction of those who believe that the Fox network needs to be yanked off the air over its egregious sin of promoting propaganda and forsaking its license to report the news.

The Fox Propaganda Network is facing the harshest condemnation imaginable over its refusal to acknowledge what its on-air personalities expressed in private: which is that the Big Lie promoted by the 45th president of the United States was false and that Joe Biden was elected legally and fairly in 2020 as the nation’s 46th president.

Dominion Voting Systems has filed a billion-dollar lawsuit against Fox claiming the network defamed it over the Big Lie, alleging vote fraud where none existed.

A bigger issue is at stake. Should the network be allowed to remain on the air pushing its falsehoods amid mountains of evidence that its leadership knew it was doing so but were more concerned about losing viewers than in telling the truth?

The Federal Communications Commission would seem to have a monster on its hands. Will the FCC do the right thing? Is the “right thing” to pull Fox off the air?

I am beginning to think that’s the only option.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news

Race to make history?

One of three people appears set to make history by being the first individual ever to indict a former president of the United States.

Who will get there first?

Will it be U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, Fulton County, Ga., District Attorney Fani Willis or Manhattan, N.Y., District Attorney Alvin Bragg?

I won’t lay down a wager. One of ’em appears set to pull the proverbial trigger on Donald J. Trump. That would be DA Bragg, who appears ready to issue an indictment alleging that a $130,000 hush money payment to a porn star from Trump wasn’t properly reported by the Trump Organization.

Whoever goes first well might give the other two political cover to act as they should and indict the former POTUS for, oh, let’s see: inciting the 1/6 insurrection, squirreling classified documents from the White House illegally at his glitzy joint in south Florida, seeking to overturn 2020 presidential election results by demanding that Georgia officials “find” enough votes to turn the state’s electoral college tally to Trump’s favor.

All of those allegations appear solid to me. However, it’s no one’s call except for the prosecutors who are examining this stuff.

The ex-POTUS is heading for some very bad news.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

media news

No thanks on propaganda

There once was a time when I would watch the Fox channel. Yes, it’s true. Even this so-called progressive American patriot would watch certain programs on the admittedly conservative media outlet.

I am going to declare here that I no longer watch Fox. It’s been a good while since I have dialed the network up on my TV. Why? Because I have known for a good while what has become clear now in the defamation lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting Machines against the network.

The network once billed itself as a “news” outlet. It is nothing of the sort. It is now a propaganda organization. Thus, I have declared my intention to refer to Fox as the Fox Propaganda Network.

I would no more collect my information from the Fox network than I would listen to, say, Josef Goebbels, tell me about what the Nazis were doing to “preserve racial integrity” in Europe during World War II. Or the Kremlin seeking to “explain” how it is “winning the war” against Ukraine, which it says began at the Ukrainians’ provocation.

The Fox Propaganda Channel lied to its viewers about who won the 2020 presidential election, despite its TV personalities admitting privately that Joe Biden won the election and that the guy who lost it is nuttier than a Snickers bar.

They didn’t bother to tell their viewers the truth. They were more worried about Fox’s TV ratings than they were committed to doing the right thing … which was to tell the truth.

Sickening.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

media news

‘Sightseers’ rioted? Sure thing

Tucker Carlson, one of the Fox Propaganda Network’s chief duplicitous faces, has revealed what many of us have known all along about the organization that pays his handsome salary.

It is not only unfair and unbalanced, it denies the truth even when the truth is broadcast live in real time to its faithful audience.

Carlson went on the air last night to proclaim that the 1/6 assault on the nation’s Capitol was a peaceful event, that the traitors who launched the attacked were mere “sightseers.”

Oh … my.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy granted Carlson access to the video of the assault. Carlson looked at what we all saw and has concluded that the attack on our democratic process was, um, no biggie. What a crock of sh**!

I no longer will refer to his employer as a “news” organization. It is nothing of the sort. Its talking heads recognized privately The Big Lie for what it was, yet they pitched the notion that the former POTUS had been robbed of an election.

Imagine for a moment that Walter Cronkite knew that President Kennedy had been shot to death, but then told viewers that he was alive. Imagine, also, any of the news anchors reporting on the tragedy of 9/11 telling viewers that the planes didn’t really fly into the Twin Towers or the Pentagon.

The Fox Propaganda Network has committed the most egregious sin possible in reporting on events of the 1/6 insurrection. It has broadcast blatant, bald-faced and outright falsehoods and portrayed them as fact.

The Fox propagandists have allowed conspiracy theorists to vilify a vote-counting company, Dominion, accusing the company of manipulating the returns to grant Joe Biden a victory they say belonged to the guy he defeated. Dominion has sued Fox for defamation. I am one American patriot who wants them to prevail over the liars at Fox.

So, here we are. Truth has become the enemy of a media outlet that purports to report the “news,” but which in reality has engaged in egregious propaganda.

Sickening beyond measure.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news

Who’s going to get indicted?

OK, allow me to admit it: I am officially on pins and needles awaiting the details of the sketchy outlines of what a Georgia grand jury foreperson said about “several indictments” coming out of the Donald Trump election-manipulation scandal.

The grand juror said out loud, in a most unusual fit of candor, said several people will be indicted. She didn’t mention any names, but the “big name” everyone ought to be on the lookout for is none other than Donald Trump.

My ol’ trick knee, which I have kept under wraps for some time, suggests that Trumpie is going to face the Fulton County criminal justice system. You see, I have thought all along that the Georgia probe was the easiest for prosecutors to prove, given the existence of that phone recording with the Georgia secretary of state and Trump demanding that Brad Raffensberger “find 11,780 votes” to give Trump the state’s electoral tally that he lost to Joe Biden in 2020.

Well, whatever …

I’m just going to wait now for DA Fani Willis to finish the job — and indict Donald Trump!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

media news

‘News’ becomes propaganda

When does news become propaganda? It happens when an organization that purports to be “fair and balanced” in its reporting of the news allegedly hides the truth and foments The Big Lie.

A company that manufactures voting machines has alleged that Fox News — the aforementioned “fair and balanced” organization — knew that Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election but rather than tell the truth it promoted the Big Lie offered by the moron who lost the election, Donald J. Trump.

The Fox propagandists continued to suggest that the voting machines had rigged the election by wiping out Trump votes and adding mythical votes to Biden’s total.

Dominion Voting sued Fox for a couple of billion bucks and is coming out on top in the preliminary court rulings.

To be clear, I do not watch Fox largely because the network is allegedly doing what I have suspected all along. The networks’ premier hosts — Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham, Sean Hannity and Maria Bartiromo — all have been heard furthering The Big Lie about the 2020 election.

What’s more, they all have said quite the opposite in private, according to court records. They have referred to the fraud allegations as so much bullsh**, that they were “seriously offended” by suggestions that fraud existed. With all those personal feelings being expressed in private, they still went on the air to promote the specious notion of “widespread election fraud” where none existed.

Indeed, investigators have determined that there was no election fraud in 2020, as the Fox propagandists have suggested. The lawsuit seeks to put an end to The Big Lie.

All of this gives credence to my belief that the right-wing mainstream media comprise liars and frauds masquerading as journalists.

Shameful.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com