Tag Archives: Donald Trump

national news, political news

GOP hotshot speaks for other GOPers

Chris Christie said something the other day that other distinguished Republicans reportedly think in private but are too chicken to say it out loud.

Christie, a former New Jersey governor, ex-presidential candidate and former confidant of Donald Trump, said this to radio gabber Hugh Hewitt:

“January 6 was a riot that was incited by Donald Trump in an effort to intimidate Mike Pence and the Congress into doing exactly what he said in his own words last week: overturn the election. He wanted the election to be overturned.”

There you have it. The truth spills out, again … this time from a Republican of some note.

Chris Christie said what a lot of Republican are thinking about January 6 (msn.com)

Perhaps the ex-governor is trying to restore his reputation as a tough talker who doesn’t give a damn about the consequences. Or perhaps — and this is likely a stretch — Christie is just plain fed up to his eyeballs with the incessance of The Big Lie that Trump keeps repeating, that the 2020 election was stolen from him.

Good grief! It was the most secure election in history. The guy Trump hired to ensure its security said so — and then got fired for telling us the truth.

I am glad to hear Gov. Christie say out loud what he should have said all along. If only other Republicans — and that includes the voters out here in the cheap seats — would agree with the words of wisdom.

And then act on them.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news, political news

If only Trump knew …

I have sought to inform readers of this blog about the myriad reasons Donald Trump was so profoundly unfit to serve as president of the United States.

One of those reasons has been laid bare in recent weeks. It has been his total ignorance of the power of the presidency and vice presidency and the limitations placed on both offices by the Constitution of the United States, the document Trump and Vice President Mike Pence swore to uphold and defend.

Trump’s urging of Pence to “overturn” the results of the 2020 election on 1/6 illustrates so graphically the ignorance of Trump about the government he was elected in 2016 to lead.

Had he any notion of the limits of presidential power, or any understanding of what the Constitution allowed, he might not have demanded that Pence do what the VP knew in real time he could not do. Pence knew he could not overturn any state’s duly certified election returns. Pence knew the limits of his role on that horrible day, which was to preside over Congress’s task of certifying the results of a free, fair, legal and secure election.

I don’t want to say, “I told you so,” but Trump’s abject ignorance of government, mixed with his delusions of grandeur, have produced a case study in how unfit this guy was to have occupied the most powerful office in the land … and arguably the most exalted office on Earth.

Y’all saw it right here.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Donald Trump

Ex-POTUS shows his profound stupidity

(Photo by BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images)

Donald J. Trump’s ability to demonstrate his abject stupidity has become the stuff of political legend, or at least the stuff of tittering and gossip.

Mike Pence, who served as vice president in the Trump administration, has said the former Insurrectionist in Chief was “wrong” to suggest that the VP had the authority to “overturn” a duly constituted election. What was Trump’s response? He decided to hurl epithets not only at Trump, but also at “Old Crow Mitch McConnell,” whatever the hell that means.

You see, all Pence did in his talk to the Federalist Society the other day was to declare that the law is clear, that the vice president had zero authority to do what Trump demanded of him, which was to reject electoral votes cast for Joe Biden and award them to Trump.

Pence said he couldn’t do that. So … Donald, for cryin’ out loud, you need to stop fomenting The Big Lie about phony vote fraud. I know he won’t stop. He likely will go to his grave bellowing nonsensical trash about “corrupt” electoral processes and “rigged elections.”

Donald Trump will check out more than likely on the wave of stupidity on which he rode to public office in the first place.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

DC riot, national news

What? Pence tells truth? Oh, my!

What in the world has happened to former Vice President Mike Pence? The man who survived four years as VP in an administration led by a carnival barker masquerading as president suddenly has found a voice to tell the world the truth about the one-time Liar in Chief.

Which is, contrary to what Donald J. Trump keeps insisting while spouting The Big Lie, that Pence had no authority to “overturn” the results of the 2020 presidential election. The former president, Pence said, “is wrong” to suggest that Pence could take that action.

Pence made the remarks this week in defense of his own actions on 1/6 but also to portray Donald Trump’s demand that he act outside the law as “un-American.” Indeed, Pence said there is nothing more un-American than to have a single individual overturn the will of the voters, who in November 2020 made their choice clear in selecting Joe Biden and Kamala Harris over Trump and Pence.

Only the voters have the right to decide who wins elections, Pence said.

To be clear, my instinct to offer unconditional praise for the former VP is tempered by the knowledge that he served with craven fealty to Donald Trump. Even immediately after the mob of traitors stormed the Capitol on 1/6, Pence remained silent about what the POTUS failed to do in real time. He failed to put a halt to the violence that was erupting inside the nation’s Capitol Building. He failed to summon the National Guard to restore order. Trump failed condemn forcefully the actions of the mob that was reacting to the then-president’s own exhortation to “take back” our government.

Let’s remember, too, that rioters were shouting “Hang Mike Pence!” who at that moment was presiding over a joint congressional session to receive and certify the electoral votes that carried Joe Biden to the presidency.

Pence’s sudden conversion to sanity and reason isn’t likely to endear him to the Trump “base” that continues to adhere to The Big Lie about phony vote fraud. Indeed, Pence is considered a possible candidate for president in 2024 and a potential rival to Trump if the ex-POTUS decides to run again (which I continue to doubt will occur).

The very best thing I can say about Pence’s declaration — and I know this is cliche — is that it’s better late than never.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Vote theft = profound irony

The irony of what we are learning through dribs and drabs of Donald John Trump’s culpability in the 1/6 insurrection is just too profound to ignore.

What have we learned? That Trump actually sought to “overturn” the results of the 2020 presidential election, according to his own words. That he pressured Vice President Mike Pence to disallow Electoral College votes that went to Joe Biden while Pence was presiding over the electoral vote certification on 1/6. That he allegedly met with White House staff prior to the riot to plot how he could “legally” call for the seizure of voting machines.

The best part is that we have a clear recording of Trump demanding that Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensberger, “find” 11,780 votes to swing the state from Biden’s corner to Trump’s. Voter theft? There it is!

And now think of this: Donald Trump’s Big Lie, that the 2020 election was “stolen” from him was being played out in real time by the then-president’s own effort to steal the election from the Biden, who won it fairly, squarely and legally.

Voter fraud? Vote theft? Trump alleges falsely that President Joe Biden’s team stole the election, all the while conspiring to do the same thing himself!

Wow, man!

The House 1/6 select committee is ramping up its probe into what occurred on that horrifying day. It is summoning key White House aides, including at least one member of Trump’s family — elder daughter Ivanka — to testify to what they knew and when they knew it. My creaky old bones are telling me that there could be some criminal indictments hurled by the committee in due course.

If so, then no one should be exempt. I shall repeat: No one should be exempt from the quest for the truth. That would include the man who masqueraded for four years as our head of state and commander in chief … the guy who sought to pilfer the election from the guy who won it honestly.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

DC riot, national news

The plot thickens

As if the plot wasn’t thick enough when Donald John Trump incited the traitorous mob to storm the Capitol Building on 1/6, seeking to stop the certification of a free and fair presidential election.

Oh, no. Now it’s getting even more serious than that.

Now we hear reports that Donald Trump was actively involved in plotting to seize voting machines in states that Joe Biden won in 2020. And do what with them? Manipulate them to reverse the outcome? To “find votes” that had been cast for the other guy and turn them into votes for his own need?

Oh, and then come Trump’s own words at that rally down yonder in Conroe over the weekend where he actually admitted to seeking to “overturn” the election result.

How much more of this do we need to start issuing felony criminal indictments against the former — and I hope never again — president of the United States of America?

I know the judicial process needs to play out. Fulton County (Ga.) District Attorney Fani Willis is going to seat a special grand jury to examine whether Trump broke state election law by demanding that Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger “find” 11,780 votes that Trump could tack onto his own total in a state that Joe Biden won in 2020. Where I come from, that sounds all the world like coercion. Is it a criminal act? DA Willis will tell us in due course.

Trump keeps presenting all these serious danger signals that suggest if given the chance, he would do all over again what he tried to do at the very of his term as president. Now comes reporting that he tried to a whole lot more than has been reported already, that he sought to in effect seize control of the ballot-counting process. Arrrgghhh!

What in the name of democracy is it going to take for this country to put this clown down for the count? Do not put words in my mouth here. I am talking only about removing this imbecile from our public conscience. The system, whether it’s Congress or the courts, needs to expedite the search for findings that will answer all the questions that we have regarding the insurrection of 1/6.

If it means rounding up the one-time Insurrectionist in Chief, then so be it. Get it done! Quickly!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

DC riot

Danger lies ahead!

(AP Photo/Jeffrey Phelps)

Dean Obeidallah has it exactly right: Donald J. Trump poses a serious threat to this nation any time he opens his mouth and says the things such as what he said this past weekend in Texas.

Obeidallah, writing for CNN.com, writes:

During the rally, Trump claimed that those who have been charged in the January 6 attack on the US Capitol are being “treated so unfairly,” and stunningly suggested that some might deserve pardons. “If I run and if I win,” Trump told the crowd of thousands, “we will treat those people from January 6 fairly … And if it requires pardons, we will give them pardons.” But more alarming than that was Trump urging his supporters to engage in “the biggest protests we have ever had” if the prosecutors investigating him and his financial dealings “do anything wrong or illegal.”

Opinion: Trump’s rally in Texas shows exactly why he’s so dangerous – CNN

Americans and the entire world have seen what can happen when the twice-impeached ex-president exhorts the faithful to commit harm. They stormed the Capitol Building on 1/6 and, well, you know what happened on that terrible day.

Now he intends to lead a second attack on our national government? Is that what this moron is saying?

We likely should just ignore the blathering that comes from this guy. Except that his trash-talk is so damn dangerous.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Honest Abe: unelectable

This is the face of an unelectable politician and, no, it is not because he isn’t particularly “telegenic.” It is because his ideas within his beloved Republican Party have become grist for the trash heap.

Consider the very notion that the man I consider to be our nation’s greatest president, Abraham Lincoln, is no longer the voice and face of a party that once called itself “The Party of Lincoln.” President Lincoln held the nation together during its darkest period, during the time when Americans fought each other over slavery and that thing one side referred to as “states’ rights.”

Then, as the Civil War drew to a close and as President Lincoln delivered his second inaugural speech after winning re-election in 1864, he said he would bind the wounds that divided us, that he would proceed with “malice toward none and charity for all.” An assassin struck a month later and denied the president the chance to deliver on his promise.

The party under which he ran for president twice has become something the president wouldn’t recognize. He certainly would not condone the tone it has taken in recent years. It has been hijacked and twisted into a form that bears no resemblance to the party of the so-called “big tent.”

Donald John Trump’s control over the party starting with the 2016 GOP presidential primary campaign has taken it on a destructive course. It’s not that the party is destroying itself. It is that the ideas it promotes has gained new followers who are wedded to the hideous notions espoused by its leader.

The Grand Old Party has become a cult whose followers are infiltrating the ranks of candidates throughout Congress and into statehouses, county courthouses and even into ostensibly non-partisan city halls and school board meeting rooms.

Imagine a Republican with the chops of Abraham Lincoln seeking public office today. Imagine how the 16th president himself would fare were he to become a candidate.

Abraham Lincoln likely couldn’t be elected as a Republican because his party would lack the good sense to nominate him in the first place. The future of civil discourse and debate in this country deserves better than what lies ahead.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

DC riot

Trump ‘unfit for office’

Jeez, do ya think? The White House press secretary today declared that Donald John Trump is unfit for office — I’ll presume any public office, not just the presidency — after he declared he might pardon the traitors who stormed the Capitol Building on 1/6 if by some hideous fluke he returns to the presidency.

So it was that press flack Jen Psaki today called out the ex-POTUS for his outrageous comment delivered at a rally in Texas.

“It’s just a reminder of how unfit he is for office,” Psaki said of Trump’s comments. “It’s telling that even some of his closest allies have rejected those remarks as inappropriate in the days since.”

How in the name of all that is sacred and holy can anyone condone the actions of those who committed that hideous attack on our democratic process? Yet that is what Trump is doing by suggesting that the defendants are being treated “unfairly.” Unfairly? What the hell?

This man continues to ratchet up the danger he poses to our democratic system of government with every lunatic utterance that spews from his foul mouth.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Anger makes me angry

Anger is an emotion that fills me with — yep, that’s right — anger, lots of anger.

I get angry with myself for feeling as angry as I do at times, particularly over matters or individuals I cannot control. The current political climate swirling around us provides me with the latest example of how angry I have become.

I am angry at the politicians and their sycophants who continue to keep The Big Lie alive and kicking. The Big Lie, as you know, purports to suggest that Donald Trump actually won the 2020 presidential election. He didn’t. He lost it bigly.

He came to Texas this past weekend and proclaimed, among many falsehoods, that the “election system is corrupt.” Dammit to hell, anyway! It isn’t! When he says such a thing, he defames the good men and women associated with both major political parties who take an oath to do their jobs with integrity and honesty and then follow that oath to the letter.

That makes me angry as hell. However, I also get angry with myself because the only weapon I have is this blog in which I can express my anger. I want to make a difference. I want this anger to sink into the thick skulls of the individuals who ignite these hard feelings. It doesn’t. I feel as though I am talking to the chair on which I am sitting at this moment.

My anger is visceral these days in a way I have never experienced. I find myself using harsh language when referencing the ex-POTUS. So help me, I never have used this kind of language when referring to POTUSes who never got my vote.

I want the anger to pass. I fear that the only way that’ll happen will be for the man who lights the fuse to disappear. I just will have to deal with my anger and seek to avoid getting so damn angry at myself.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com