Tag Archives: GOP

national news

What happened to Congress’s better angels?

There once was a time when we expected our elected leaders to represent the very best in us, yes?

What, then, has become of that standard in the halls of our Congress?

A Republican member of the House, Paul Gosar of Arizona, could be censured by his Democratic colleagues for posting an animation depicting him killing Democratic U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and attacking President Biden. Has there been any recrimination coming from the Republican side of the great divide? Has any of the GOP leadership scolded Gosar publicly for posting such a hideous depiction? No. Nothin’, man.

House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy has said nothing. Nor has any of the leadership team surrounding him.

Gosar could be censured. That means he will have to stand in the well of the House and listen to  his colleagues excoriate him. The critics are likely to be Democrats only. But his conduct casts shame on the entire House of Representatives, which contains a significant number of Republicans as well.

The better angels of our elected House have gone silent.

What a horrible shame on them!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

A tip of the hat to Sen. Murkowski

Were I wearing a hat, I would tip it toward U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, an Alaska Republican, who has announced her plans to seek re-election in the face of a challenge from someone who has earned the endorsement of the 45th POTUS.

Why has the former Liar in Chief endorsed someone other than the GOP incumbent? Because Murkowski has said some unkind things about the ex-Insurrectionist in Chief, which has drawn his ire. He just cannot tolerate anyone who puts the rule of law above loyalty to himself.

Sen. Murkowski announces reelection bid in a race featuring a Trump-backed GOP challenger (msn.com)

I have no stake in this fight other than to wish that the Senate remain under the control of senators who aren’t beholden to The Big Lie and the cultists who insist that the 2020 election was stolen from the former POTUS.

I’m standing with Sen. Murkowski as she seeks to fend off this primary challenge.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Did POTUS take a beating?

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Let’s flash back for a moment about 30 years to the presidency of George H.W. Bush.

Going back that far, every new president suffered political setbacks in Virginia and New Jersey, meaning that the governors races in those states went to the winner from the opposing party.

Bush 41, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump all suffered those embarrassments.

Joe Biden on Tuesday only suffered half of it. Virginia went from Democrat to Republican. New Jersey’s Democratic governor, Phil Murphy, managed to win re-election.

Now, does this lessen the impact of this bellwether election? Is President Biden’s agenda now in the clear? Hardly.

It’s just that the president somehow managed to avoid the embarrassment that befell his five predecessors who saw the governorships in those key states flip from their own party to the party on the other side.

It’s complicated. Yes?

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Unity? Far from it!

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President Biden might have been able to declare some form of victory today had any Republicans had taken part in the negotiation that produced a $1.75 trillion spending bill that appears headed for final approval in Congress.

Sadly, he cannot. Why? Because the Grumpy Obstructionist Party won’t take part in anything pitched by a Democratic president.

This kind of obstructionism simply enrages me, a self-proclaimed “good government progressive” blogger/pundit/cheap-seat occupier.

I want the GOP to take part in this government, which does involve them as well as Democrats. Instead, Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell and his House counterpart, Kevin McCarthy, have opted to dig in against the Democrats and the POTUS.

Good government is a team sport. That means, in my view, the whole team comprising members of both parties. Instead, we’re getting a government run by roughly half of the House and the Senate along with the guy who sits in the big office in the White House.

President Biden vowed, in a manner of speaking, to bridge the gap between the parties that grew to enormous size during the administration of Biden’s immediate predecessor. Indeed, the 45th POTUS had no interest or skill in bridging that gap. Biden, at least, brought considerable legislative experience to the White House.

He has yet to bridge the great divide. I hope he can get there.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Character still matters

Do you remember a time when Republican politicians recited the mantra that “character matters”?

I do. It became vogue when Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton sought to become president in 1992. Republicans got wind of some alleged indiscretions involving the young governor. They whipped it all into a frenzied rally cry that sought to undermine the candidate’s presidential aspirations.

Well, character still matters. Except that Republicans have gone deaf and blind on what the rest of us have seen about a prominent GOP politician. That would be … umm, Donald J. Trump.

The former POTUS is an admitted sexual assailant; an admitted philanderer; he has denigrated prisoners of war, calling them “suckers” and “losers.”

Character, anyone? Yeah, it still matters now just as it did in the early 1990s when Republicans sought to make character an issue in another presidential campaign.

Except that these days the GOP is turning away while one of its own flouts the very institutions he once vowed to preserve and protect. His lack of character also revealed itself when he disparaged a great American, Colin Powell, only hours after the great man’s death.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

How can this loser actually win?

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A whole array of political brainiacs are offering a chilling bit of news that foreshadows the 2024 Republican Party primary contest.

It is that Donald John Trump, the twice-impeached loser, is the odds-on favorite — as of this moment — to win the GOP nomination.

Let’s ponder that one for just a moment.

For starters, I am not yet convinced he is going to run for POTUS. He might find his sorry rear end indicted on felony charges relating to the 2020 election and his attempts to subvert the results that produced a victory for President Biden.

Setting that aside, are the GOP faithful actually so committed to this idiot to nominate him for a third consecutive election cycle to the presidency? He failed in his single term.

He lied incessantly. He botched the nation’s initial response to the coronavirus pandemic; he kept secret from the public information he had learned privately about the severity of the illness. Time and time and time again he said things that contradicted the experts he brought aboard ostensibly to help him do battle against the pandemic.

Trump spoke correctly about becoming a “wartime president,” but then didn’t act on it.

Literally dozens of this guy’s inner circle have been indicted and some have been convicted of illegal activity. Yes, these were among the “best people” he pledged to help him govern.

Are we really going to head down that path yet again with a Republican nominee who cannot tell the truth, who cannot negotiate, who cannot strike deals, who doesn’t know the first thing about governance?

Man, I hope the political intelligentsia is all wrong as it examines the possible future of a once-great and viable political party.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Both sides need to talk … to each other

Fairness dictates that I make this complaint of Democratic politicians just as I did of Republican politicians during the previous presidential administration.

I want Democrats to talk to Republicans and I am terribly distressed that they aren’t reaching to the other side of the great divide.

Think back to the term of Donald J. Trump. The Republican president chose to speak only to fellow Rs on Capitol Hill. He allowed the GOP caucus to craft that tax cut bill that favored rich folks. Democrats wanted no part of the deal. The then-POTUS didn’t reach out to them. He stiffed ’em!

That guy is gone. The new president, Joe Biden, has resorted to talking mainly to Democrats on his Build Back Better agenda. Indeed, GOP Senate leader Mitch McConnell has made his point clear: Ain’t no way the Republicans are going to support anything that comes from a Democratic president. President Biden figures: What the hell is the point in talking to them?

Well, I believe he should. Just as I believe that his predecessor should have talked to Democrats in search of common ground.

I have spoken of late about “good government.” This is how government ought to work. Compromise is not a four-letter word.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

military news

Back off … chumps!

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There’s something off-putting about watching politicians grill battle-hardened military men in search of what I consider to be cheap political points.

That’s what I saw today as three distinguished warriors sat before a Senate committee to be questioned about their role in the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Let me be clear about a key point. I subscribe wholly to the notion that civilian authority must remain central to the conduct of our military policy. However, when I watch politicians seek to dress down men of valor, well … it turns me off.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, a former Army four-star general, was one of the targets of the chumps serving on the Senate panel; so was Army Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; same for Marine Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, commanding officer of Central Command, which has coordinates all military activity in Afghanistan and the surrounding region.

Sen. Marsha Blackburn, a Tennessee Republican, sought to get Milley to admit whether he spoke to authors of books that have looked critically at the last days of the Donald Trump administration. Milley answered “yes” that he had spoken to the authors. Blackburn then asked whether he supported what they wrote. Milley said he hasn’t read any of the books.

That wasn’t good enough for Sen. Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican, who then asked whether Milley was too busy being interviewed by the likes of Bob Woodward and Robert Costa to pay attention to the details of the Afghan War withdrawal. Hawley, ever the showman, then demanded that Milley and Austin resign their posts.

Ridiculous!

All three of these men have served their country with honor, valor and distinction. Milley has taken heat because of reporting in the book “Peril” that he gave his counterpart in China a heads up in the event of a potential attack by the United States in the waning days of the Trump administration. Good grief! He acted nobly as he sought to protect the United States against potential catastrophe!

Politics fuels everything these days. Hawley wants to run for president. He wants to make waves within the GOP so he takes this opportunity to question the integrity of genuine Americans heroes.

Disgusting.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

‘GOP’ takes new meaning

(Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Attention, my friends in the Republican Party.

Your political organization, once known as the Grand Old Party, has acquired a new moniker. It’s called the Grubby Obstructionist Party.

Yes, the party that once was able to govern effectively working with Democrats in Congress and the White House, has become a party intent on furthering some nitwit political agenda.

The GOP has decided to block moves to bump up the debt ceiling. It won’t allow the nation to pay its bills. It is going to block President Biden’s Build Back Better legislative package — which would be paid out over several years. It is now threatening to shut down the government … again! Why? Because its intention is to do harm to a duly elected president.

Democrats are scrambling at this moment to figure out a way to work around their GOP colleagues, the same colleagues who saw no problem with boosting the debt ceiling when one of their guys was in the White House and when they controlled the legislative branch of government.

Now it’s changed. Except that it hasn’t really changed. The obligations are the same now as they always have been.

The Grubby Obstructionist Party — whose U.S. Senate leader Mitch McConnell has said the debt ceiling must be increased but won’t allow his Senate GOP caucus to be part of it — has shown itself to be unfit to govern.

Disgraceful.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Will No. 45 be nominated?

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Some pundits/commentators/thinkers I respect a great deal are throwing a major scare into this old man’s body.

They are suggesting that at this moment Donald J. Trump is the “favorite” to be nominated by the Republican Party to run for president in 2024.

Let’s ponder that for just a brief moment.

The House of Representatives impeached him twice. The first time was for soliciting political favors from a foreign government; a clear violation of the law, not to mention the Constitution. The second time was for inciting an insurrection against the government as Congress sought to ratify the Electoral College returns from the 2020 presidential election; another clearly defined “high crime and misdemeanor.”

He skated twice because not enough Senate Republicans had enough courage to stand by their oaths of office and convict him.

The former POTUS has hijacked the GOP. He is holding it hostage to his whims and machinations. He is the man, the myth, the legend in his own mind.

He is making noises about wanting to run again.

If he does and if the GOP is flat-out stupid enough to nominate this clown once again — after all the damage he has inflicted on the government he once vowed to protect — then, ladies and gents, we are in far more trouble than I ever imagined.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com