Tag Archives: 2020 election

crime news, Donald Trump, Joe Biden, legal news, national news, national security, political news

Will Trumpism outlive its founder?

It has been said by more than one commentator that the movement Donald J. Trump spawned will live long past the time he no longer is a political factor.

Pardon the skepticism, but I don’t think that’s necessarily the case.

I’ll start with this notion: I have doubt that Donald Trump is (a) going to run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024 and (b) that the GOP has gone totally braindead to nominate him if he does enter the fray.

The Republican Party has shown itself in the past, oh, six years to be a party full of gullible numbskulls who are willing to swallow the swill delivered by Trump. They ignore the threat he continues to pose to our democratic process; they give him a pass on the idiocy that flies out of his mouth; they proclaim a desire to “defund the FBI” after the feds find top-secret documents squirreled away in his Florida home.

So, what is going to happen to Trump’s movement — his cult — once he’s no longer a political player. The way I see it, and I’ll admit it is from the cheap seats, whatever “movement” that Trump has stoked will disappear. Why keep telling The Big Lie about a “stolen election” if the Main Man is no longer calling the shots?

I am going to hold tightly onto my own hope that the law’s lengthy arm is going to corral The Donald sometime soon. The Justice Department is examining whether Trump broke the law in taking those classified documents from the White House; the House select 1/6 committee is considering whether to ask for indictment related to the insurrection that Trump clearly incited; the Fulton County (Ga.) district attorney is looking into whether Trump broke state election laws by demanding that officials “find” enough votes to overturn that state’s 2020 presidential election result.

Oh, and the New York attorney general already has filed a $250 million lawsuit against the Trump Organization for allegedly falsifying its worth to obtain favorable loans.

We have, as they said in a movie, “a target-rich environment.”

The cult leader, it appears to me, is going down in flames. May the fire consume what is left of the movement that bears his name.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Donald Trump, Joe Biden, legal news, national news, political news

No need to ‘restore’ voter integrity

I have to say this as loudly and clearly as I possibly can say anything: The American electoral process is clean, fair and its integrity does not need to be “restored.”

Once again — ad nauseum — we hear adherents of the former Big Liar in Chief suggest that there is something fundamentally broken within the electoral system.

There isn’t. The system ain’t broke. The excuse mounted that declares “widespread vote fraud” is the result of one man losing the 2020 presidential election by 7 million ballots. He has succeeded in planting sufficient doubt in the gullible skulls of his cult followers about the integrity of the most recent presidential balloting.

Court after court, expert after expert all have determined that the loser’s assertion of widespread voter fraud is, in itself, fraudulent. The only theft of the election results has been the work of the loser’s attempt to toss out legitimate election returns.

Having taken a swing or two at the critics of the electoral system, I want to assert that the system isn’t perfect. Then again, it’s never been absolutely free of the occasional effort by someone, somewhere to cast an illegal ballot. Hey, it goes with the territory.

There have been reported isolated incidents of phony votes cast since, oh let’s see, the beginning of the Republic!

But to hear Republican politicians these days, you’d think the entire system is corrupt. That it’s crooked. That the integrity of the system is so compromised that it puts our national government in dire peril.

Only one problem has existed with this hysteria: No one has proven a word of it!

The midterm election is coming on quickly. There will be some election deniers on the ballot in several states. They will continue to promote The Big Lie as they try to persuade voters to send them to public office. The midterm election will be as clean and relatively corruption-free as the 2020 election turned out to be.

I just have heard all I can stand to hear from those who proclaim to seek a “restoration” of our electoral integrity. There is not a damn thing to restore.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news, political news

Terrorism? You bet!

I felt compelled to look up the term “terrorism” in my handy-dandy, dog-eared American Heritage Dictionary.

I found this: “Terrorism, (n): the political use of violence or intimidation”

Fascinating, yes? I think it is.

We just went through a weekend in which we commemorated the bloodiest act of terrorism ever committed on U.S. soil. The 9/11 attack in reality was an act of war and we responded initially in righteous anger.

Then came the events of 1/6, an insurrection committed against the U.S. government by a riotous mob of traitors who stormed the Capitol and sought to prevent the certification of a duly conducted U.S. presidential election.

Both events, while different in their scope and level of carnage, had one thing in common. They both were “political” acts that used “violence and intimidation” against their victims.

So, when we refer to the 1/6 attack on our government, let’s be sure to understand what it was and what it intended to do.

It was a terrorist act meant to frighten government officials into doing something they weren’t empowered to do.

And to think that the assault came at the behest of an individual who took an oath to protect and defend the very government he later would attack.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Donald Trump, Joe Biden, national news, political news

Yeah, Donald, keep blathering

1 Comment

I am going to steal a thought that appeared first on social media from a member of my family.

My cousin Jim posted an item I want to share: And he recently referred to the sitting president of the United States as the “Enemy of the people.” In Russia, one would disappear after such a comment.

Indeed, think about the idiocy of Donald Trump’s latest rant about the man who defeated him soundly in the 2020 presidential election.

He calls President Biden the “enemy” after Biden rolled up 81.2 million votes, 7 million more than Trump collected, with a 51% majority of all votes cast.

Doesn’t the ex-POTUS understand the irony of making such a hideous statement? In Russia, which is governed by his good buddy Vladimir Putin, he would have been arrested and thrown into some gulag in Siberia simply by making such a ridiculous assertion. And, no, there is no guarantee in Russia of “freedom of speech or expression.”

I know the answer to the question I posed. Trump cannot think at all beyond his own narcissistic desires. Mention the word “irony” to Trump and you might as well be speaking Martian to him.

This individual is a disgrace.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

legal news, national news, political news

Ginni Thomas: dangerous conspirator

Ginni Thomas just keeps distinguishing herself in ways that ought to bring shame not just to her but to her husband … who happens to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court.

Thanks to some intrepid reporting from the Washington Post, we now hear that Ginni Thomas urged Wisconsin Republicans to do all they could to overturn the results of that state’s 2020 presidential election. She wanted them to flip the results from Joe Biden’s column to Donald Trump.

Why is this important? Because … hubby Clarence Thomas continues to rule on cases involving that election, rather than (a) recuse himself from anything having to do with that event or (b) just resigning from the high court altogether, which is my preferred outcome.

It is an utterly disgraceful display of conflict of interest for Justice Thomas to continue ruling on these matters while his wife continues to roil the faithful with idiotic assertions that the election was stolen from Donald Trump.

This matter is so far from being over.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Donald Trump, national news, political news

Trump is insane

How do I say this nicely? OK, I cannot, so I will not … say it nicely.

Donald Trump is insane. His butter has slipped off his noodle. He needs to be committed immediately to the nearest nut house.

The former twice-impeached president of the United States, the nimrod who lost to President Biden in 2020, says he needs to be “reinstated” immediately to the office he lost in a free, fair and legal election. Or there needs to be another election to settle the outcome of the 2020 contest once and for all.

Trump Ridiculed After Calling for His Reinstatement: ‘Ridiculous at Best’ (msn.com)

OK, let’s see. The outcome was settled already. President Biden collected 81.2 million votes to Trump’s 74.2 million votes. Biden won the Electoral College total with 306 electoral votes to Trump’s 232; Biden needed 270 electoral votes to win the election.

Trump continues to insist, without a shred of evidence, that the 2020 election was rigged, stolen … whatever.

This individual is nuts. He also is considering whether to run for the office again.

Lock him up!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news, State news

Public service or sacrifice?

It is virtually impossible to find any situation equal to what public servants are experiencing in this era of petulance, but I might have a close example.

Gillespie County, Texas, no longer has an elections department because its officials have resigned over the harassment they have received in light of the 2020 presidential election. Teachers have quit their jobs because parents have grown intolerably angry over mask mandates and other requirements imposed to fight the COVID-19 pandemic.

The closest example to this I have experienced in my lifetime occurred in the late 1960s and early 1970s when Americans turned their anger over the Vietnam War to those of us who participated in it. Our military personnel were following lawful orders but when they returned home from that war, they were treated in many cases like war criminals.

We grew out of that anger … eventually.

My hope now is that we can outgrow what is occurring now.

As the Dallas Morning News noted in an editorial:

This needs to stop. We believe in an America where people are willing to listen to each other, where they are willing to see the humanity in another person, where we are willing to admit maybe there is another side to the story.

That’s called maturity. It’s something that’s in too short supply these days. Some growing up would do us good.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Another run for Donald?

The political world cannot seem to stop talking about Donald Trump and whether the two-time candidate for president wants to make a third run at an office in which he garnered fewer votes twice than his opponent.

Given that I cannot predict what this nimrod will do, I am left just to speculate out loud and wonder: Does this guy actually believe he can win after being impeached twice and has since been revealed to be an individual who is incapable of fulfilling the duties of his office?

It’s a stretch even for The Donald.

At least that’s my belief.

He has prided himself on his unpredictability. He said as much when he garnered more electoral votes in 2016 than Hillary Rodham Clinton. He was right. I couldn’t predict a single move this guy would make during his single term in office.

So, if he’s still an unpredictable moron, does that mean all this fancy footwork, this teasing his followers that he is going to run — again! — mean he doesn’t really intend to do it?

Let’s suppose for instance that Attorney General Merrick Garland indicts Trump for violating the Espionage Act by squirreling confidential documents away from the White House and hiding them in the basement of his Florida mansion.

How in the name of political idiocy can a man run for POTUS while fending off what could be a lifetime sentence in prison?

Or, what happens if the Fulton County (Ga.) district attorney indicts him for voter interference? Or if the New York AG indicts him for falsifying his net wealth to obtain loans?

I just am having trouble grasping how anyone — even someone as slimy and slippery as The Donald — can possibly run for president under those circumstances.

Well, I ain’t predictin’ nothin’, man. I am just going to remain skeptical that The Donald is going to take this plunge yet again. There well could be a crowded Republican Party primary field awaiting with opponents ready to skewer him over what we now know to be the truth about him.

OK. Maybe it’s just wishful thinking on my part. Accuse me all you want of bias. Or of hating Trump. I won’t deny any of it.

Nor will I deny loathing the sight of him clenching that tiny fist of his in that show of defiance intended to portray this coward as a tough guy.

If you do, don’t forget to accuse me as well of loving my country enough to prevent it from enduring any more misery that this individual can bring.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Vote fraud? Yes, but …

2 Comments

The purveyors of The Big Lie keep insisting that the 2020 presidential election is the result of “widespread vote fraud,” of millions of dead people casting ballots, nations using orbiting satellites to manipulate votes.

Am I going to deny the existence of some voter fraud? No. I cannot possibly make that denial with a straight face. Nor can I presume that election deniers have anything credible to assert the “widespread” of the fraud they insist occurred in November 2020.

The “Big Liar in Chief,” Donald J. Trump, keeps leading the chorus of deniers. The cultists who hang on his every lying word hang on them as if they are gospel. They continue to foment The Big Lie and continue to insist they’re going to end it.

End … what? Precisely?

This is the ultimate frustration for those of us who happen to maintain reasonable trust in the local election officials who do a great job of protecting the sanctity of our cherished freedom to vote for the candidates of our choice.

I am more than willing to acknowledge that individuals here and there occasionally try to pull some funny stuff at the ballot box. They are caught and they are prosecuted. The conspiracy theorists out there will not be satisfied as long as they can cling to The Big Lie and pretend it is true.

They call themselves “patriots.” They are traitors.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news, legal news, national news

So many options for AG and others to ponder

As I sit here in the peanut gallery far from Ground Zero in the Donald Trump investigation hotbed, I find myself thinking about the options that await the former president of the United States.

Only one of them looks good and at this moment it appears to be the farthest from taking shape.

Attorney General Merrick Garland is among those who are trying to determine whether to indict the ex-president on criminal charges. We also have the Fulton County (Ga.) district attorney looking into allegations of vote tampering and the New York state AG examining whether Trump’s business committed crimes. Oh, and then we have the House of Reps’ select committee examining whether Trump broke the law by inciting the mob of traitors to storm the Capitol on 1/6 and seek to stop the certification of the 2020 election … that Trump lost to Joseph R. Biden Jr.

There’s nothing cast in stone that says Garland must indict Trump on anything, let alone on the most serious charges he might be considering. The AG could determine there isn’t enough to send Trump to prison for the rest of his life, so he might decide to pursue lesser charges.

Then the DA in Fulton County, Fani Willis, also might determine that Trump didn’t really seek to interfere with the election by demanding that the state “find” enough votes to put him over the top.

New York AG Letitia James also could find that she doesn’t have the goods on Trump’s business, even though his chief financial officer has pleaded guilty to tax fraud and is awaiting a sentence.

And what about the House panel? The committee has compiled a mountain of evidence that suggests everything from inciting insurrection and dereliction of duty on 1/6. The testimony we have heard has been stunning in the extreme!

But you see, Trump is facing a mounting array of legal challenges … even as he supposedly ponders whether to run for the presidency yet again in 2024. My strong sense is that one of those challenges is going to fall hard on The Donald.

The least likely option would be for none of these probes to produce a formal criminal charge against the former president. I understand fully the gravity of taking such a step. I also grasp the blowback that would occur from the cultists out there who continue to excuse the ex-POTUS’s conduct at all levels in the period after the 2020 election.

It just occurs to me that the very last person on this Earth I would want to be is Donald John Trump.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com