Tag Archives: GOP

national news

Compromise fuels good government

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

The older I get the more I believe in compromise and the less weight I place on the value of long-standing ideology.

Which is my way of suggesting that the haggling that’s occurring over (a) voting rights legislation and (b) infrastructure legislation is a sign of good government trying to find its way into law.

Congress is wrestling with itself over both of those notions. Republicans seem wedded to the “just say ‘no'” theory of government. Anything that comes from the Democratic president, Joseph R. Biden, is deemed DOA the moment it leaves his mouth.

Biden has long prided himself on being able to work with the GOP. He did so with great effect while serving for 36 years as a U.S. senator and then as eight years as vice president. Now, though, he is deemed the enemy of the GOP, even among his once-good friends … such as Sen. Lindsey Graham and Sen. Mitch McConnell. Oh well.

He threw a $2.25 trillion infrastructure package at the GOP. He apparently is willing to settle for a lot less than that. Still, most of the Rs ain’t budging. At least not yet.

As for voting rights, the GOP now has taken up the “states’ rights” mantra, contending that the feds shouldn’t interfere with states’ ability to write their own voting rules. Except that the Republican-led states, such as Texas, are seeking to disenfranchise millions of Americans who, as luck would have it, happen to vote mostly Democrat when they get the chance.

The GOP’s other mantra? Voter security, as if there was a huge breach in that security in the 2020 presidential election. Spoiler alert: There wasn’t any such breach!

But the two sides are slogging through an effort to find some level of compromise.

I am a good-government progressive. I am not wedded so much these days to ideology as I am to seeing government work. I want my federal government to work, to serve me and my family; we are paying the freight, along with you.

Stay busy, ladies and gentlemen who serve in government. We demand you find a way to compromise. Or else!

national news

Shut the hell up, Rep. Jordan

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Jim Jordan is among many congressional Republicans who just piss me off. Pure and simple. The guy is a loon who needs to have a sock shoved into his pie hole.

He has managed yet again to make an ass of himself by suggesting that the rising auto fuel prices are the result of President Biden’s economic policies.

Good grief, dude! Get a fu**ing grip.

“Average gas price: June 2020: $2.21 June 2021: $3.07,” Jordan tweeted today. “President Biden’s economy!”

Then came the response from the White House press flack, Jen Psaki. “You forgot to mention that gas prices are the same now as they were in June 2018. Or that this time last year unemployment was 11.1% — today it’s 5.8%,” she said. “@POTUS agrees families shouldn’t pay more at the pump – that’s why he’s opposed to GOP proposals to raise the gas tax.”

The idiot Jordan refuses to acknowledge that supply and demand — simple economic policy — is creating this spike in fuel prices. Demand has returned as the COVID pandemic has receded. Supply of fuel remains limited because energy companies have yet to ramp up their production capacities to meet the pent-up demand.

So with that I simply want to offer a simple demand of the Ohio loudmouth/blowhard/gasbag member of Congress. Just shut the hell up.

national news

Juneteenth receives deserved honor

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Texas has celebrated this glorious day for decades.

Now it’s time for the rest of the nation to join us.

Juneteenth will become the nation’s latest national holiday once President Biden puts his name on the legislation that sailed through the Senate unanimously and through the House in overwhelmingly bipartisan fashion.

It becomes the first national holiday since Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday was declared such in 1983.

I am delighted as a Texas resident to see this state take a front-and-center place in this discussion. June 19, 1865 was the day that African-Americans were informed in Galveston that they were, indeed, free from enslavement; the announcement came two years after President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. News didn’t travel nearly as fast as it should have in those days … you know?

Cornyn calls GOP lawmaker’s position against Juneteenth ‘kooky’ (msn.com)

And so, with the exception of 14 GOP knuckleheads in the House, virtually the entire legislative branch of government is on board in that rare bipartisan event.

This day deserves the honor it is about to receive, as do the descendants of those who were declared finally free of humanity’s greatest sin.

State news

Paxton faces huge obstacles

(Photo by Erich Schlegel/Getty Images)

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Ken Paxton might be the most seriously damaged political incumbent to seek re-election since, oh, the guy who lost the 2020 presidential race to Joe Biden.

Paxton is the Texas attorney general — a Republican — who has announced his intention to seek a third term in office. But wait! How does this guy think he’s going to breeze to a new term?

Paxton has been indicted and is awaiting trial in state court on securities fraud charges. A Collin County grand jury indicted its home boy (Paxton once represented the county in the Legislature) on a charge that he failed to notify authorities of his financial dealings while peddling securities information to clients.

There’s more. Seven of Paxton’s top legal aides filed a whistleblower complaint alleging that he used his office to steer business to a political crony. The FBI is looking into that one.

Now we hear that the State Bar of Texas wants to yank Paxton’s law license because he filed that idiotic lawsuit in the U.S. Supreme Court that sought to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in four states that voted for President Biden.

Land Commissioner George P. Bush has announced his campaign for AG. Next is likely to be former Texas Supreme Court Justice Eva Guzman.

Should we count Paxton out? Not by a long shot. You see, he’s a Republican incumbent who happens to have the backing of the aforementioned disgraced former POTUS, who holds astonishing sway over a gullible electorate.

If the AG survives all of this and wins re-election, then I only can surmise that Texas voters need to have their heads examined.

local news

Legislators show spine … good for them!

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Oregon’s state legislators have demonstrated some rare political courage and they have made this native Oregonian quite proud of them.

Oregon House members voted 59-1 to expel state Rep. Mike Nearman of Independence, Ore., for disorderly behavior after he let rioters into the State Capitol to protest the state’s response to the COVID pandemic. The event occurred Dec. 21. Nearman, a Republican, was caught on video allowing rioters into the Statehouse.

Lawmakers remove state legislator over Oregon Capitol breach (nbcnews.com)

Many of the mob members were carrying banners supporting the previous POTUS. Some of them spouted QAnon conspiracy theories. They posed a direct threat to the Legislature, which was meeting at the time. The Capitol had been closed to the public because of safety concerns.

That didn’t matter to Nearman, who opened the door to the mob.

The expulsion is the first for Oregon in its 160-year history.

Meanwhile, other state legislators elsewhere — not to mention members of Congress — are demonstrating wimpiness in the extreme as they fail to take action against those who promote the kinds of violence we have witnessed in this pandemic and post-election age.

Well done, Oregon legislators.

legal news, State news

Justice Guzman to seek AG’s office? Hmm

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

It might be time for a mea culpa from your friendly blogger.

I might have spoken a bit too soon in lamenting the lack of legal standing among politicians seeking to become Texas attorney general.

Texas Supreme Court Justice Eva Guzman is about to become a former justice … with an eye toward running for Texas AG in the 2022 Republican Party primary. Her last day on the state’s highest civil appellate court is Friday. Then what?

Eva Guzman – Wikipedia

Justice Guzman represents a tremendous boost in the legal credentials of a political candidate seeking to become the state’s top law enforcement officer.

The incumbent Ken Paxton wants a third term. Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush has declared he wants to defeat Paxton in the 2022 GOP primary. Both men have, shall we say, sparse legal cred. Paxton has been indicted for securities fraud and is awaiting trial; he also is the subject of a FBI probe into allegations of criminal wrongdoing in his office. Bush has a limited legal career under his belt, but has served as land commissioner for the past six years.

Now we have Guzman. She is the daughter of immigrants from Mexico. She grew up in Houston. She attended the University of Houston and got her law degree from Duke University. She has served on the state court of appeals and has been named appellate judge of the year.

Guzman has built a stellar legal career.

To be clear, she hasn’t declared her attorney general candidacy.

At least not yet. Stay tuned.

State news

GOP no longer ‘pro-business’ party?

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

If you thought that the Republican Party is the “pro-business” political organization, you might want to rethink that now-quaint notion.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican (of course), has signed a bill into law that punishes business for demanding that customers prove they have been vaccinated against the COVID-19 virus, the one that has killed nearly 600,000 Americans.

It seems that Abbott believes people have no need to prove to anyone they have been vaccinated against a highly communicable, infectious and still potentially fatal disease.

Sure thing, guv.

He can count me as one Texas resident has no problem providing proof to anyone that I have been vaccinated. Indeed, my wife and I got our shots relatively early and have been adhering to the mandates sought by federal medical authorities: masks, social distancing, frequent hand-washing, and so on.

The Texas Tribune reports: “Texas is open 100%, and we want to make sure you have the freedom to go where you want without limits,” Abbott said before signing the law, in a video he posted Monday on Twitter. “Vaccine passports are now prohibited in the Lone Star State.”

Sigh …

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signs bill to restrict “vaccine passports” | The Texas Tribune

I am puzzled by the notion that a political party that used to tout its love for private business and sought to grant business owners relative autonomy from government interference is now endorsing this heavy-handed approach to preventing them from protecting their employees and those they serve.

local news

Where are legislative proposals?

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I have spent a good bit of time on this blog bitching about a congressman from up yonder in the Texas Panhandle, where I lived for 23 years before moving to the Metroplex.

Republican Ronny Jackson seems to spend an inordinate amount of time tweeting this and that invective-filled message castigating Democrats. He isn’t alone among GOP lawmakers who just love to blast their former pals on the other side of the great political divide.

I am left to wonder: When are these yahoos going to produce some constructive legislation?

I am not seeing or hearing anything from Rep. Jackson, the former White House physician and Navy admiral. All I see are Twitter messages calling President Biden everything but the son of Satan. Hell, maybe he has slipped that on through but I just didn’t see it!

Is this going to be the GOP caucus strategy moving well into the Biden administration? Obstruct, delay, yap and yammer? Will they be able to produce fundamentally sound legislation to at least have some valid talking points on the table to compare to what Democrats are seeking?

So it appears that Rep. Jackson is marching to the cadence being called by House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy and his pal in the Senate, GOP leader Mitch McConnell. He’s a freshman legislator and might believe he lacks pull to strike out on his own.

The do-nothing caucus appears to be full of others just like Rep. Jackson. What a flippin’ shame.

Uncategorized

GOP has gone bonkers

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Just how wacky has the Republican Party become in the Age of Trump?

Well, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, one of Trump’s strongest allies, got booed when he stood to speak before the George Republican convention. Why were the goober Republicans angry with Kemp? Because the governor wouldn’t force the secretary of state to break the law and “find” enough votes to turn the state from a Joe Biden win to a Donald Trump win.

So, for that the nut jobs have taken their vengeance out on a governor who happens be a Trump ally … but who just couldn’t bring himself to break the law or violate the U.S. Constitution.

This is the kind of goofiness that Republicans are facing as they do battle among themselves, not to mention when they face Democrats in the upcoming midterm election.

Trump loyalists boo Kemp at Georgia’s GOP convention (msn.com)

Of course, Trump is playing the GOP loyalists like the fools they are for following the dictates of the former Dipsh** in Chief. I mean, the ex-POTUS is even a real Republican, but he has fooled ’em into thinking he is one of them.

They are left now to boo and jeer actual Republican politicians — such as Gov. Kemp — only because they won’t follow Trump’s demands out the window.

Weird, man.

Joe Biden

‘Normal’ looks so special

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

A brief conversation with a member of my family brought to mind something I have thought since the Donald Trump Era came to a halt and we welcomed in a new era of “presidential normality.”

My family member couldn’t speak angrily enough about the way Trump conducted himself in office. I responded that my own view is that a “non-traditional presidency” wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing if the president exhibited any form of competence. That is one of the many shortcomings that Trump brought to the office; he didn’t know anything about government and his actions reflected a knee-jerk, chaos-driven philosophy. The man is incompetent. Not to mention crooked, amoral/immoral and narcissistic. Oops, I just did.

Which brings me to this point.

President Biden’s normal approach to governing now looks special in its own right. It’s not that Joe Biden has scored dozens of key legislative victories. He has just one so far: the COVID 19 relief package that passed with zero Republican help. He well could roll up some more wins with only aid from fellow Democrats. That’s fine.

The Trump method just didn’t work. The Biden method — which features attempts at compromise and jaw-boning with the loyal opposition — holds considerable promise … if only the GOP members of Congress would cut the POTUS just a bit of slack. The problem, though, is that the GOP caucus is being dominated by the Loony Bin Wing, the Trump adherents who keep fomenting the Big Lie about 2020 presidential election vote fraud that did not exist.

I am going to stick with the guy who ran for office vowing to “restore our nation’s soul.” He’s got a ways to go before he can declare full restoration. The normal approach to governing, though, looks pretty good to me.