Tag Archives: midterm election

national news, political news

Election deniers pose grave danger

I am trying like the dickens — with everything I can muster up — to be optimistic about the midterm election.

Except that those damn public opinion polls are showing an alarming — and frightening! — trend out there. It is that the election deniers, the MAGA Republicans, the Trump cult followers are faring shockingly well among voters prior to the balloting.

I am thinking about the race for Arizona governor, where MAGA fruitcake Kari Lake holds a slim lead over Democrat Katie Hobbs.

Hobbs is the secretary of state. Lake has vowed to “overturn” the results of the 2020 presidential election and work to return Donald Trump to the presidency he lost during that election. President Biden won Arizona by roughly 11,000 votes. The MAGA goons brought in those phony election analysts to perform a “forensic audit” of the 2020 balloting and, guess what … they found that Biden actually won the election.

That ain’t good enough for Kari Lake and other MAGA goons who support.

She’s not the only one. We have that MAGA moron in Pennsylvania, Doug Mastriani, pledging the same thing if he beats Josh Shapiro to be that state’s governor.

I cannot help but believe that if the MAGA wing of the Republican Party carries the day in these key elections that this country is in a serious world of hurt.

And what in the world is all this going to deliver for the 2024 election and the result it produces? If the election deniers hold public office, they promise to finish what the 1/6 insurrection effort sought to do after the 2020 election: overturn the result.

Are we really and truly prepared to walk down that path?

Man, if we are, then we are in much worse trouble than any of us ever imagined.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news, political news

POTUS still has power

Let us assume for a moment or two that the worst thing happens — at least from my admittedly biased view — after the midterm election and Republicans gain control of both congressional chambers.

Such an event remains an open question. The House well could still flip; I am not sure about the Senate.

Were the Republicans to gain control, they need to do so in a significant fashion. As in, they would need what amounts to a super-majority in the Senate to sustain whatever it is the GOP caucus wants to accomplish. Why? Because President Biden has the veto pen at his disposal.

The Constitution sets a high bar for overriding a presidential veto, just as it does for convicting an impeached federal official, such as the president of the United States. Both congressional chambers must agree with a 2/3 vote to override a veto. No one in their right mind thinks the Senate is going to turn from a 50-50 body to a 67-33 Republican majority after the midterm election. I have made the case that Democrats actually have a decent shot at solidifying control of the Senate by winning a couple of seats for a 52-48 majority. The House also looks as though a GOP flip would be by a slim margin.

Given the intense partisanship that dictates how legislation flows in Congress, it would work well if both legislative chambers could find a way to craft more bipartisan legislation that could appeal (a) to Democrats serving in Congress and (b) to the Democrat who occupies the Oval Office … and who has that veto pen at his disposal.

Republicans, though, well could be getting ahead of themselves if they believe a much-touted “red wave” is afoot in the midterm election. Their overhyped confidence in the quality of some of the MAGA-ites running for high office could well bit ’em in the backside.

I sense the “wave” election is turning more into a ripple across a puddle … which gives President Biden an important tool he can deploy to fend off the extremists’ view of where they think the nation ought to go.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news, political news

Brown vs. Jackson … no contest!

You might be able to read two messages into this proclamation: an election pitting Democrat Kathleen Brown vs. Republican Ronny Jackson is a “no-contest” affair.

One way is to presume that Jackson, a first-term congressman representing the 13th Congressional District of Texas will have little trouble winning re-election to a second term in about 41 days.

Another way is to suggest that there’s “no contest” between the quality of the candidates. To my way of thinking, that puts Brown far ahead of the blowhard Donald J. Trump toadie.

I got acquainted with Brown this morning. We had a nice chat over the phone. I told her of my continuing interest in the affairs of the 13th district, even though I no longer live there. I spent 23 years in Amarillo and became quite embedded in the politics and culture of the Texas Panhandle.

I also informed her that I am appalled by the conduct of Jackson, who moved to the Panhandle prior to the 2020 election in order to seek the seat that Mac Thornberry vacated after serving the district for 25 years.

I want to repeat a couple of things I told Brown about Jackson. One is that I consider him to be a “carpetbagging opportunist” who doesn’t “know Pantex from potting soil.” He’s also a blowhard who spends an inordinate amount of time tweeting diatribes against President Biden.

Those who know Brown understand that she is a lawyer who lives in Wichita Falls. She is married and the mother of three children. She claims — which they all do — that she isn’t a politician … but in reality she is, right?

Her top priority if elected to Congress? She said the 13th District needs water. Her hometown of Wichita Falls is running dry. The Ogallala Aquifer is receding rapidly. To be blunt, she didn’t offer any specifics on how to provide the Panhandle and her home region with water.

I reminded her that I now live in Collin County, which is one county too far from the eastern edge of the congressional district she wants to represent. I have been following Ronny Jackson’s rise to the front of the right-wing media chorus line and I dislike what I am hearing.

I don’t know if Kathleen Brown has what it takes to defeat Ronny Jackson, meaning I don’t know if she’ll be able to persuade enough voters to join her effort.

I do believe the 13th Congressional District deserves far better than it is getting from the interloper who claims to “represent” it. Kathleen Brown can do better. Then again, Ronny Jackson has set the bar shamefully low.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news, political news, State news

More Rs cross over?

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It’s been a good while since the last time I can recall so many politicians making headlines by endorsing candidates from “the other party.”

It’s happening on the eve of the 2022 Texas midterm election.

Sarah Stogner, who lost the Texas Railroad Commission Republican Party primary runoff to incumbent Wayne Christian, has announced her intention to vote for Democrat Luke Warford. She’s not alone.

Former GOP Lt. Gov. Bill Ratliff is going to cast his ballot for Democratic challenger Mike Collier. The man who was known in the Texas Senate as Obie Won Kenobi ain’t gonna support incumbent Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick. Neither is Amarillo GOP state Sen. Kel Seliger or Tarrant County GOP Judge Glen Whitley, both of whom have thrown their support behind Collier.

It all seems to speak to the deep divisions within the Republican Party. I know Seliger quite well, and I know of Ratliff, given that I was paid to follow legislative activities during my time as a full-time journalist. They both are “mainstream Republicans,” and neither of them is wedded to the fiery MAGA rhetoric that folks like Patrick use to blister their opposition.

Sarah Stogner endorses Democrat Luke Warford for railroad commissioner | The Texas Tribune

I am acutely aware that a handful of examples does not constitute a groundswell. It might, though, be a harbinger of what could be boiling under the political surface as we get nearer to midterm Election Day.

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

national news

One for two in midterms?

Handicapping political races is among the more dicey endeavors I ever have tried, which is why I am shying away from handicapping the 2022 midterm contests.

Specifically, it is dangerous to predict how the midterm elections will turn out, which party will control Congress’s two legislative chambers.

I do have an idea based on trends I keep hearing about.

The U.S. Senate might not flip from Democratic to Republican control. What’s happening? It appears the GOP is shooting itself in both feet by fielding certifiable nut cases in key races they had hoped to keep or flip into GOP control.

Mehmet Oz is running for the Senate in Pennsylvania. One problem: He doesn’t live there; he hangs his hat in New Jersey. His opponent, Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, appears to be pulling away. GOP Sen. Pat Toomey is retiring, so that one might flip from R to D.

Ohio might go from red to blue also. Republican Sen. Rob Portman is retiring. Rep. Tim Ryan is the Democrat running to succeed him. The GOP challenger is J.D. Vance, another nut job. Ryan is leading and he, too, could pull away. Another state might go from R to D.

Democrats appear set to hold onto two seats formerly thought to be ripe for the picking. Sen. Mark Kelly is looking strong against his GOP challenger. My favorite contest this year could be Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock vs. GOP dumbass Herchel Walker. The Rs thought Walker could pilfer this one. They are wrong. Walker’s only claim to any sort of fame is his stellar college and pro football career. Beyond that? This man might be the most unfit candidate ever to suit up for a political office.

One more: GOP Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin might get tossed out by Democratic challenger Mandela Barnes. Oh, how I would love to see that occur.

The Senate stands at 50-50. When the ballots are counted in November, it could be a 53-47 Democratic majority.

The House? That one looks more problematic for Democrats, although I keep seeing that the projections for a “Red Wave” are diminishing from a tsunami to a pebble in a puddle.

It is going to be an invigorating and likely angst-ridden election season coming up. The spirit of our democratic process — despite Donald Trump’s efforts to subvert it — appears to be alive and well.

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

How bad will it get?

Karl Rove, the man once known derisively as “George W. Bush’s brain,” has laid out what he believes will occur when they count the midterm election ballots in November.

He writes in the Wall Street Journal, “Even Democratic strategists now admit the midterms will be disastrous for their party. “It’s going to be a terrible cycle for Democrats,” Doug Sosnik, one of the party’s best grand strategists, recently told the New York Times. The question is how big the calamity will be. A freeway pileup? Category 5 hurricane? Or Krakatoa with all the attendant consequences?

I do not intend to question the sincerity of Sosnik’s assertion, as reported by Rove, but it kind of begs a question that’s been rattling around my brain for the past few weeks.

It goes like this: Might it be even remotely possible that Democratic strategists are laying out a worst-case scenario with a glimmer of hope that if their losses are less than expected that they can claim a sort of moral victory?

Or, there’s this: Is it possible that the gloom-doom-despair prognosis is hiding some positive outcome, that Democrats actually could retain control of one of the congressional chambers?

I realize that politics can be a cynical game. Politicians and their hired guns — be they Democrat or Republican — look for any angle they can find to suit their agenda.

Since I am perched in the cheap seats out here in Flyover Country, I am nowhere close to the heartbeat of the nation’s political center. I am just wondering whether there could be a bit of gamesmanship being played.

These things do happen. I am just sayin’, man.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Tough to comprehend

I am likely to go to my grave never understanding how a politician can be heard threatening his colleagues over their conduct in the wake of a violent political insurrection can receive — allegedly — a standing ovation when he rises to speak to them in person.

So it was, reportedly, when U.S. House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy spoke to his GOP colleagues today. It all comes after media reports — complete with audio recordings of McCarthy — of the pol’s indignation over the 1/6 riot that sought to subvert our democracy.

I mean, you can hear McCarthy talk angrily of his colleagues’ behavior during and immediately after the riot. Then he said something profoundly stupid to them.

He wasn’t talking “publicly” about them, only “privately,” and added that he wouldn’t ever say those things in public.

Why, the House Republican caucus members just stood and cheered their hero, who wants to be the next speaker of the House if his party takes control of Congress after the midterm election later this year.

Go fu**ing figure.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

We are headed for catastrophe … seriously!

Excuse my tendency to push the proverbial panic button with regard to the midterm election, but I have to declare my fear that we could be headed for governmental catastrophe if Congress flips from Democratic to Republican control.

Indeed, I am concerned about Mitch McConnell become majority leader if the Senate flips. Today, though, it’s House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy who has earned the bulk of my wrath. McCarthy truly gives me the heebie-jeebies.

McCarthy wants to become speaker. If the House flips to his party, then he stands a good chance — I fear! — of being chosen speaker. What does that mean for those of us who favor good government? It means the House well could launch a torrent of probes designed to embarrass Democrats.

It well could become payback time in the People’s House.

Why do I worry about McCarthy? Because we now have a possibly presumptive speaker who has been recorded on audio saying something he actually well could deny he said, which was that he intended to encourage Donald J. Trump to resign from the presidency in the wake of the 1/6 insurrection.

He said as much to Rep. Liz Cheney. Then he denied saying it — until an audio recording surfaced.

This guy is a coward. So is Mitch McConnell, to be candid. Both of these individuals blamed Donald Trump for “provoking” the Capitol Hill riot on 1/6. Then McCarthy voted against impeaching Trump and McConnell voted to acquit him in the Senate trial that commenced after the second impeachment.

Will any of this occur? The tides are moving toward a GOP blowout on Election Day. That the president’s party would suffer a congressional election setback is not unusual. It is usually the case. Both legislative chambers have razor-thin Democratic majorities, so it won’t take much for the GOP to take control of the legislative branch of government.

I just worry for the sake of good government, though, that the next speaker of the House could be a cowardly liar who backed away from his condemnation of what the world saw occur on 1/6 and then sucked up to the Insurrectionist in Chief.

I don’t want the catastrophe to occur. Nor should anyone who values this democratic process of ours.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com