Tag Archives: Big Lie

national news

Door slams on election deniers

Kari Lake is trailing in her bid to become Arizona’s next governor. Doug Mastriani lost his effort to be elected governor of Pennsylvania. Blake Masters is losing in his bid to become senator from Arizona.

Oh, let’s not forget that Lauren Boebert is losing her re-election bid to the U.S. House from Colorado.

What do these nimrods have in common? They are election deniers who contend that Donald Trump actually won the 2020 presidential election, despite tons of evidence that he, um, lost to Joe Biden.

They among other election deniers are meeting the same fate at voters’ hands. They are falling short in their grasping at power and their effort to overturn the results of a free, fair and legal election.

The three individuals I cite are Republicans (of course). They all are loyal to the Election Denier in Chief, Donald John Trump. None of them deserves to be elected to anything.

May their struggles continue.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

GOP House member shows his conscience

What the heck? A member of the U.S. House Republican caucus has issued a stern warning to those election deniers out there.

Rep. Dan Crenshaw of Houston says the election deniers know they are fomenting a lie and it is going to hurt them … badly.

Finally, we are hearing from someone other than Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger that the GOP congressional caucus needs to pull its collective head out of its backside.

It’s progress, man. That’s all I can say about that.

The Big Lie is damaging our democratic process. It is sullying our nation’s most cherished right. It besmirches the reputations of state and local election officials who work diligently to ensure that our elections are safe, free, fair and legal.

Dan Crenshaw says election deniers know they’re lying | The Texas Tribune

“It was always a lie. The whole thing was always a lie. And it was a lie meant to rile people up,” Crenshaw said on a podcast, deriding some of his peers as “political personalities” rather than “politicians.”

If only more GOP pols would see the truth … and speak it loudly and clearly.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news, political news

Democracy, indeed, is on the ballot

Make no mistake: Democrats across the nation have pegged the stakes in this election correctly.

Democracy itself is on the ballot in all 50 of our states. It falls, then, on voters to ensure that our democratic process survives the onslaught it is facing from the array of election deniers, MAGA adherents and political perverts who believe that violence is the way to settle political differences.

Many of them are threatening to take power in states where believers of The Big Lie are making noises about overturning election results; one of the big liars, Wisconsin Republican nominee for governor, Tim Michels, has said that Republicans never will lose another election in his state if he is elected governor.

Yes, democracy is on the ballot. Its well-being is facing direct peril. It is up to the voters of this great land to ensure it survives.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news, political news

GOP ‘fixer’ emerges as prime threat

Tim Michels has emerged as the No. 1 enemy of the nation’s democratic process. He is a dangerous man who needs to lose his effort to become Wisconsin’s next governor.

Michels is running against Democratic Gov. Tony Evers. He said something this week that — no matter how you parse it — presents an existential threat to our democracy.

Michels has declared that if he wins the election next Tuesday, that Republicans will “never again lose an election” in Wisconsin.

Think for just a moment — if you can resist the urge to throw something heavy through a large window — about what Michels is suggesting. From my perch, Michels has said he would “fix” future elections to ensure that GOP candidates emerge winners. Every single time! That’s what he said.

How does he do such a thing? By rigging elections! By tossing out votes cast for candidates he opposes! This is the very thing that the Big Liar in Chief — Donald J. Trump — said (without producing a lick of evidence) occurred in the 2020 presidential election.

Tim Michels now wants to follow Trump’s lead over the cliff by pledging to ensure that Republicans never lose an election ever again in Wisconsin.

Does anyone out there see the utter irony in this kind of chicanery? I cannot remember a major-party candidate for public office ever pledging to rig elections. Until now.

I get that it involves only one of our 50 states. However, it reveals a mindset prevalent within the ranks of a once-great political party … which has been hijacked and co-opted by those who present a serious threat to the democratic process that once was immune from such attacks.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

legal news, local news, political news, State news

Garza is not Paxton

I couldn’t help but chuckle under my breath when I read the opening two sentences of a recent Dallas Morning News editorial.

The paper stated: There is little we can find to recommend Rochelle Garza for attorney general except that she is not Ken Paxton.

Frankly, that’s enough. 

I suppose you could say the DMN was set to damn Garza with faint praise as it recommended her for election next week as Texas attorney general.

So, it did that with its editorial that spent most of its space condemning the lunacy that has accompanied Paxton’s two terms as the state’s chief law enforcement officer.

The Republican AG has been on the hot seat ever since he took the oath of office in January 2015.

A Collin County grand jury indicted Paxton in 2015 on a charge of securities fraud; he has yet to stand trial. Seven of his top deputies resigned and then blew the whistle contending that Paxton is guilty of felonious criminal conduct; the FBI is investigating the complaint. The Securities and Exchange Commission announced it was conducting an independent probe into the securities fraud matter; no decision has come down. Paxton has filed specious lawsuits contending that the 2020 presidential election was infected with widespread voter fraud; he has been laughed out of many courtrooms.

This guy wants another four years as attorney general, an office that requires its occupant to be squeaky clean. Paxton falls far short of that reasonable requirement.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Cannot comprehend the stupidity

Make no mistake about it. I will go to my grave never understanding how supposedly mainstream Americans can buy into the stupidity being peddled by so many Republican candidates for public office.

Yes, the midterm election is coming up rapidly. It appears that the GOP is going to wrest control away from Democrats in at least one congressional chamber. The House appears to be vulnerable to the potential politics of revenge that awaits once Republicans seize the gavel and committee chairmanships from Democrats.

What just utterly astounds me, though, is the idiocy being blathered by the MAGA-loving, election-denying cult followers of the most recent former GOP POTUS.

They belong to what I should refer to as the Dumbass Wing of the GOP. The espouse treasonous views that seek to undermine the integrity of our electoral process. Some GOP candidates for governor and secretary of state vow to “overturn” the results of the 2020 election. Why? Because they have bought into the Big Lie about the election being “stolen.”

What is stunning beyond all measure is that so many Americans have signed on to that bullsh**, believing the rubbish being spread about election integrity.

We have utterly incompetent candidates running under the Republican banner who stand a good chance of being elected to important public offices. They will then be able to foist their idiocy onto the public that believes it. I am left to wonder how long their supporters will hang with them once we’re all exposed to the chaos and confusion their policies are likely to bring.

I am going to offer all kinds of karma and prayer that seeks to stop on the onslaught I fear might be about to swamp Congress, some of our statehouses and even some of our school boards, which could elect book-burners and those who believe we need to purge our public schools of that phony “critical race theory” principle.

I am feeling the pangs of fear … and I don’t like it.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news, political news, State news

Election denial: Issue No. 1

Whether your candidate for public office takes the correct stand on abortion or gun violence might not matter if the wrong candidates win contests that would allow them to control future elections.

I refer to election deniers and their presence on many state ballots in the 2022 midterm election.

These are the dipsh**s who need to be stopped.

In Texas, we have an election denier running for re-election as attorney general. Yes, that’s Republican Ken Paxton, the idiot who has filed lawsuits seeking to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

Some of these cretins are running for other powerful public offices. Republican nominee for the Texas’s Third Congressional District, which represents my wife and me in Congress, is one of them: I refer to former Collin County Judge Keith Self, who is as hard-core a MAGA-loving conservative as they come. Spoiler alert: He won’t get my vote.

The nation’s once-revered election system is under siege by those candidates who have swallowed the swill offered by Donald J. Trump and his cadre of cultists who insist the 2020 election was stolen. They have offered not a single shred of proof of “widespread voter fraud” that would have decided the latest presidential election.

Yet the gullible among the masses have signed on to their lying, deceit and outright treasonous assertions about vote fraud. They stand ready to cast their votes for those candidates who endorse their political perversion.

I have spoken before of my eternal optimism about the future of our country and the strength of our Constitution. I will have to rely on my belief that the founders crafted a governing document that will withstand this all-out assault on our government.

I also must extend my hope to the wisdom of voters who — I hope — recognize evil intent when they see it.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Stop the lies!

The current political climate is giving me pause, forcing me to rethink a pledge I made on this blog many years ago, which was that censor or block anyone on my social media network because of their politics.

You know, of course, that I consider myself to be a “center-left” blogger. I extol what I call “good government progressivism.” That’s another way of saying that I do not accept some of the wacky progressive notions being tossed around. Free college for everyone? A non-starter, man.

But wait! There are a ton of individuals on the MAGA right wing of the great divide who keep telling lies. They use my blog to foment those lies when I comment on them. They will respond to a comment I offer about why I consider The Big Lie – the one about alleged theft of the 2020 presidential election – to be a threat to democracy. They say there was widespread fraud. Yet they provide the same amount of evidence of such fraud as the Godfather of The Big Lie, Donald Trump: none!

I am not going to be a pansy about criticism of my comments. I don’t mind receiving barbs. Seriously. It’s OK with me. What troubles me are the lies that critics use to buttress their shameful responses.

They contend that President Biden is suffering from a lack of cognition. They don’t know what they’re talking about. They continue to insist that Biden wasn’t elected POTUS legitimately. Texas has a congressman, first-term Republican Ronny Jackson, who insists that Democrats are seeking to destroy the nation’s democratic process. He is full of sh**!

All of this leads to ponder whether I want to renege on my pledge to allow this blog to be an open forum for discussion. Well, I won’t take it back. I am not going to allow the fomenting of lies.

Johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Candidate victimized by snickers

By any reasonable measure, Democratic Lt. Gov. John Fetterman should be elected U.S. senator from Pennsylvania in a few days.

His opponent in the midterm election is a former physician, Mehmet Oz, who boasts not one moment of public policy experience. Furthermore, Oz doesn’t even live in the state he allegedly wants to represent in the Senate.

As I write this brief blog post, Fetterman is running slightly ahead of Oz in the polling. Why is that? Because Oz and his Republican allies — led by Donald J. Trump — have made a stroke that Fetterman suffered a few months ago a campaign issue.

Has Fetterman lost any mental acuity? Is he less smart now than he was before the stroke? No and no. However, he has suffered what he admits to are “auditory” issues. He has trouble stringing sentences together.

I want to mention all this because of the nastiness that permeates the campaign to succeed retiring GOP Sen. Pat Toomey. The result of this election well could determine which parties controls the Senate in January; the Senate now is split 50 to 50. It’s a big deal, man!

I would hate for this campaign to turn on one side’s tittering over a serious man’s cognitive ability … which hasn’t diminished because of a stroke.

However, the cheapness of debate is exemplified in this contest and others featuring campaigns that include election denying/MAGA-loving Republicans and their Democratic foes.

That is what is playing out in Pennsylvania. It should not have come to this, with the result of a contest between a tested public policy veteran and a fraudulent carpetbagger now being too close to call.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news, political news

Considering straight-ticket ballot

For as long as I’ve been voting, and that goes back to 1972, I have resisted the notion of voting for candidates of just one party.

I am rethinking that personal policy as the 2022 midterm election draws closer.

I want to be clear. I won’t punch the straight-ticket slot on my ballot. Hah! I can’t do it anyway, as we no longer have that option in Texas. However, the state of policy in the Republican Party makes it virtually impossible for me to support anyone who endorses the platform set forth by the GOP.

I refer to its hideous criminalization of abortion, its election denial based on The Big Lie fomented by the GOP’s titular head (the immediate past president of the U.S.A.), its refusal to consider legislative remedies to gun violence.

Democrats up and down the ballot are likely to get my vote in 2022. Not all of them, mind you. I might just pass over some of the statewide contests on the ballot; some of the races remain mysteries to me.

I went to a Princeton Independent School District candidate forum recently and heard from a spectator that one of the candidates is the “only suitable Republican” running for one of two seats on the PISD school board. I reminded the young man that the candidates run as non-partisans; they aren’t Democrats or Republicans. That candidate might get my vote, but it doesn’t count as a partisan decision.

The partisan ballot, though, is full of clear choices. My mind is pretty much made up as early voting is about to commence. Still — and this is important — I intend fully to vote on Election Day. I want to hold off on committing my ballot to any candidate early in case the candidate messes up and makes me regret my vote.

The contests for Congress, for key statewide offices appear likely to be one-sided for this voter … if you get my drift.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com