Tag Archives: GOP

national news

Hatch’s death saddens me

A strange sense of sadness overtook me this evening as I learned of the death of the longest-serving Republican U.S. senator, Orrin Hatch of Utah.

Why am I so sad? I think it is because Hatch, who left the Senate in 2018, embodied a gentler time in American politics. Did I agree with his policy views? Hah! Not even close! Hardly ever!

However, this conservative lawmaker — whose name appears on hundreds of pieces of legislation that became law — exemplified the ability to work with Democrats. He knew how to find common ground, where to look for it and how to craft it into meaningful legislation.

He said this in his farewell address to the Senate: “The last several years I have seen the abandonment of regular order … Gridlock is the new norm. And like the humidity here, partisanship permeates everything we do, … All the evidence points to an unsettling truth: The Senate, as an institution, is in crisis, or at least may be in crisis.”

Yep, it’s in crisis, all right. It is in crisis because the Senate has turned into a pit of vipers, along with the House, with members of both chambers expressing outright fear of working with members of the other party.

That is nothing close to the “regular order” that Hatch and other senators cherished.

He was a principled conservative, but he was a gentleman, too.

Thus, the sadness at his death.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news, Sports news

Tell the whole story, Sen. Cotton

There you go. This well might be the most compelling rebuke of Republican opposition to the teaching an element of our national history that I have seen so far.

It comes to me from a good friend who share it on social media. The “Tom Cotton” referenced in the top passage is the GOP senator from Arkansas. Cotton has been opposing what he and other congressional Rs refer to as “critical race theory.”

Of course, Sen. Cotton is quite correct to salute the accomplishments of Jackie Robinson, the first African American to play Major League Baseball. He smashed through that barrier 75 years ago this season. “Today we honor him and his lasting legacy,” Cotton wrote via Twitter.

Yes! We do!

But hold on! What about the 50 years of MLB’s existence prior to Robinson joining the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947? Dare we also discuss in our public school classrooms the reasons why Robinson and other African Americans were denied the opportunity to play big league ball with white players? Do we ignore the inherent racism in MLB’s policy banning black players? Do we also ignore the epithets that fans hurled at him as he sought to play baseball in big league ballparks?

There’s a wonderful back story that needs a brief telling. One of Robinson’s closest friends on the Dodgers was a shortstop from Kentucky, Peewee Reese. When the Dodgers took the field in Cincinnati in 1947, the fans heckled Robinson mercilessly, calling him every vile name you can imagine. Reese walked over and stood next to his friend, threw his arm around his shoulders and stared down the crowd until the noise stopped. That act cemented their friendship.

Do well tell our children about that event? Of course we should!

Yet the likes of Tom Cotton would have us ignore that element in our great nation’s otherwise storied history.

No nation in the history of our planet has come of age without suffering through painful chapters. The United States of America has a few of ’em. Racism is a story that needs to be told to our children … and no, it won’t make them “hate America.”

So, if we’re going to salute and honor Jackie Robinson, we need to tell the whole story of what this great man was able to accomplish. Some of it is painful. Still, let’s tell it … and teach it to our children.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Herschel Walker: dumbass

Gosh, I hate speaking badly about a guy I used to admire when all he did was pack a football and run with it for thousands of yards during his career.

However, that ex-gridiron star, former Heisman Trophy winner Herschel Walker of Georgia, is now running for the U.S. Senate and all I can say about him is that he might be the biggest dumbass running for high office in this election cycle.

Walker is running as a Republican. He wants to succeed Sen. Rafael Warnock, one of two Democrats elected to the Senate in 2020 from Georgia.

I have heard some of the nonsense that comes from Walker’s pie hole. One utterance, caught my attention. He recently said while disparaging evolutionary science that “If man came from monkeys, why do we still have monkeys?”

Isn’t that just a real knee-slapper? Actually, that isn’t even an original quip. I heard the late comic George Carlin say it many years ago. So, Walker not only is a dumbass, but he’s a dumbass who cannot offer many original thoughts.

Sen. Warnock has done a creditable job in the Senate. He has become a leading voice of the Senate’s progressive caucus. He also has plenty of what one could call “cred” among African Americans, given that he is African American. What’s more, when he is not writing federal law, he preaches at Ebeneezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, where the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered the Holy Word to his parishioners.

It occurs to me that this contest could offer voters in one state a chance to stop the dumbing-down of Congress by returning a man with considerable intellect — Sen. Warnock — and rejecting a man with next to zero understanding of how government works … and who cannot even produce an original quip.

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

local news

GOP needs to hear this

Today’s version of the Republican Party is in dire need of wisdom from the likes of a mayor of a mid-sized American city who — and pardon the cliche — is speaking “truth to power” about those who run a once-great political party.

McKinney Mayor George Fuller has earned high praise for his blunt talk about the state of the Republican Party, to which I am presuming he belongs; I base my presumption on the fact that municipal elected officials in Texas run as non-partisans.

As the Dallas Morning News commented today in an editorial: McKinney Mayor George Fuller said he was “ashamed” of the way his fellow party members have behaved regarding book bans in public school libraries. He said out loud what voters already know: Fringe politicos will use any culture war issue to fearmonger and drum up their base.

The DMN commented further: “Individuals are trying to hijack the Republican Party,” he said. “They’re divisive people that are hurting this country … They’re damaging our children, our most precious commodity, and using them as their new pawn.”

The Morning News notes that Fuller and Fort Worth Mayor Mattie Parker — another GOP official who has spoken against the current party leadership — are not “Republicans In Name Only.” The paper notes that Parker has held staff jobs for several top Texas Republicans and that Fuller is a business-friendly official who is a developer when he’s not governing a rapidly growing community in Collin County.

Fuller and Parker are pragmatic politicians who know the risks associated with their party being swallowed up by the cult of personality that has placed today’s GOP in grave danger.

McKinney Mayor George Fuller is speaking truth to the GOP (dallasnews.com)

A political party must not be hijacked, as Fuller has noted, by any individual whose sole motive is to cling to power … and the democratic process be damned!

The party had better awaken to the truth that Fuller and Parker are telling … or else.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news

When will denigration stop?

I cannot help but wonder how a member of Congress can continually denigrate the president of the United States, suggesting the president is mentally unfit for high office and then possibly expect that president to respond to a request — were it to come from the congressman — for help in any fashion.

U.S. Rep. Ronny Jackson is a freshman Republican member of the House from the Texas Panhandle. Ever since taking office after winning election in 2020, Jackson has been on a constant Twitter harangue over President Biden’s occasional verbal stumbles.

He doesn’t refer to Joe Biden as “President” Biden. He continually harps on what I believe is a red-herring argument that the POTUS would fail a cognitive test.

Jackson recently declared that the nation needs Donald Trump “more than ever.” No, Ronny, the nation does not need the serial liar and philanderer, the crook, the insurrectionist, the power-hungry narcissist, the a**hole who cannot articulate a single public policy with any degree of intelligence.

Back to my point. There could come a time when the 13th Congressional District of Texas needs immediate federal attention. Natural disasters do strike, you know. How does the congressman, the author of the string of idiotic, moronic and disgraceful Twitter messages ask the president for help?

Moreover, how does the president, who has been on the receiving end of these vile epithets, respond to those requests, were they to come?

I mention Jackson mainly because he represents a region I used to call home. He also has become a bit of a national media star, given his extreme anger aimed at President Biden; Fox News loves having this clown on air expressing himself in such a cavalier fashion … without ever challenging the veracity of the claims he makes.

Hey, I am just asking … for a friend.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Yeah, listen to Newtie

Newt Gingrich makes me laugh, albeit derisively, as he tries to offer advice and a critique of the state of today’s Republican Party leadership.

The former (disgraced) U.S. House speaker doesn’t think much of GOP Senate leader Mitch McConnell’s leadership style. He likes the notions being pitched by GOP Sen. Rick Scott of Florida and California’s U.S. Rep. Kevin McCarthy.

Newt Gingrich questions McConnell’s strategy for Republicans: ‘As bad as Pelosi’ | Just The News

Sigh …

I am left to wonder: What in the world is Newt Gingrich’s track record as a legislative leader?

It stinks, man!

Newtie became House speaker after the GOP took control of Congress in the 1994 Contract With America election. He managed to work pretty well (for a time) with Democratic President Bill Clinton. The two men found a way to hammer out a balanced federal budget. Good deal, yes? Of course!

President Clinton then got re-elected in 1996 and in 1998, Democrats retook command of Congress, which of course occurred on Gingrich’s watch as House speaker.

Then came the scandal that resulted in President Clinton’s impeachment. Who led the impeach-him chorus? Newt Gingrich! Oh, but wait. In real time, Newtie was boinking a staffer, cheating on his second wife, while at the same time decrying President Clinton’s behavior with the White House intern.

Gingrich eventually resigned from the House; he married the woman with whom he was taking the extramarital tumble. He went to work for Fox News and has become a royal pain in the patootie ever since.

So, when this clown critiques today’s political leadership, I am, umm … left to snicker.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

GOP pledges grim future

(AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

When the Republican leader of the U.S. Senate pledges to make life difficult for a Democratic president and his Democratic colleagues in the Senate, we had better sit up and pay careful attention.

Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell has a proven record of employing his enormous obstructive skills to block legitimate efforts to move the country forward if they will benefit the agenda being followed by the right wing of his party.

Republicans appear poised to take over control of Congress after this year’s midterm election. If they do, the rumbling we hear comes from those Republicans who intend to exact revenge on Democrats. It will come in the form of blocking appointments or derailing legislative proposals. Hell, it might even result in Republicans unplugging congressional investigations into the criminal activity perpetrated on 1/6 by the previous GOP president.

This isn’t how good government is supposed to work.

McConnell exhibited his obstructionist skill in February 2016 when, after Justice Antonin Scalia died, he blocked then-President Obama’s attempt to replace Scalia with a SCOTUS nominee. It was “too close” to a presidential election that at the time was months away, McConnell said. He played his hand skillfully, as the GOP nominee won the election that year and then was able to push through three SCOTUS picks before his term ended in 2021.

The final pick was rammed through the Senate just weeks before the 2020 election, which made McConnell’s “too close to the election” call in 2016 nothing more than a ruse.

Don’t bet your last bitcoin that Congress will flip from Democratic to Republican control this year. But in case it does, then we had better prepare ourselves for a politically bloody clash.

It won’t be pretty.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

State news

Beto has a shot?

You know, there once was a time — not many weeks ago — that I considered Greg Abbott a shoo-in for re-election as Texas governor.

That Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke didn’t have a Democrat’s chance in blazing hell of defeating the Republican incumbent.

Today? I am not so sure about that gloomy forecast.

Am I going to predict a Beto O’Rourke victory this November, breaking the GOP vise-grip on statewide elected office, ending the Republican dynasty at the top of the Texas political food chain?

Not … on … your … life!

(Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

However, I am going to suggest that the Abbott-O’Rourke contest well might become one of those races that the national media will be watching with intense interest.

This won’t surprise any readers of this blog, but my fervent hope is that O’Rourke defeats Abbott. The governor has become show horse, a guy who wants to elevate his personal political profile with an eye toward seeking the White House in 2024. Abbott’s idiotic pledge to send “illegal immigrants” to Washington, D.C., to hand the problem to the feds is an example of a politician looking to make headlines without offering the hint of a solution.

He doesn’t have a solution. Abbott has no interest in working with Democrats or seeking cooperation from President Biden.

I have no clue about how O’Rourke might handle this matter were he elected governor. I feel confident, though, in suggesting that O’Rourke, who hails from El Paso, knows plenty about border issues and he does not favor an “open border” policy.

Nor do I believe that O’Rourke is going to single-handedly disarm Texans by stripping us of our firearms. He knows better than to mess with the Constitution! That won’t stop Abbott and his cabal of demagogues from portraying O’Rourke as a soft-on-crime liberal.

I want this race to remain competitive. I want O’Rourke to make Abbott answer for the way the state handled the 2021 winter freeze. I want O’Rourke to offer a reasonable alternative to the Abbott posturing in the face of crisis after crisis.

What’s more, I want O’Rourke to tell Texans how he plans to govern and how he intends to end the state’s war against its gay residents, how he intends to make voting easier, not harder, for Texas.

And I want Beto O’Rourke to remain firm against the attacks that are sure to come from Greg Abbott.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

State news

Cruz proves his idiocy

(AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

Ted Cruz deserves a special mention on this blog, given his shameful and disgraceful and despicable performance while questioning Supreme Court Justice-designate Ketanji Brown Jackson during her confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

I have made no secret of my loathing for the junior U.S. senator from Texas ever since he joined the Senate in 2013. He always has appeared to be grooming himself as a Republican presidential candidate. He took his best shot in 2016, losing the GOP nomination to the guy who eventually would win that year’s election.

I dubbed him the Cruz Missile because he seemed intent on blowing up every enemy he made along the way. The guy reportedly has few friends in the Senate.

He lectured Justice-designate Jackson on whether children are born racist and sought to paint her as soft on child pornographers and threw assorted red herrings at her during the time allotted for questioning. Granted, he wasn’t alone in behaving boorishly among Republican inquisitors. I just am feeling the urge to express my disgust at this clown who represents my interests in the World’s Greatest Deliberative Body.

Cruz is a coward. Why do I say that? Because the guy who once told the truth about Donald Trump — calling him a sniveling coward and an “amoral” politician — became a suck-up acolyte to the POTUS.

He also doesn’t give a damn about the people he represents. I have to point to the jaunt he sought to make with his family to Cancun while most of the state was freezing in February 2021 in that winter freeze that ended up killing hundreds of Texans.

Moreover, how much more “sniveling” can one get than to blame his daughters for the decision to flee to Mexico while Texans were freezing to death? That’s what Cruz did when he was outed for fleeing the state.

Ted Cruz ain’t among the best and brightest Texas can offer to serve in U.S. Senate. As he showed during the SCOTUS confirmation hearing, all this clown intended to do was prance, posture and preen for the GOP base that will nominate the next president of the United States.

God help us if it’s Ted Cruz.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com