Tag Archives: MAGA

economic news

Biden budget = political weapon

Let’s put it all on the table: President Biden’s announcement of a new federal budget proposal is aimed at a political audience, not at anyone in Congress who he can persuade to join him in the effort to advance the “values” he espouses.

Joe Biden ventured to Pennsylvania to unveil a budget he says will cut the federal deficit by $3 trillion over the next decade. That is, to borrow a phrase, a Big F****** Deal.

He wants to raises taxes on rich Americans and corporations. He wants to preserve Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act. The president wants to shore up our military, our national intelligence network, the fight for Ukraine’s sovereignty. Biden wants to make community college attendance free.

Is this going to fly with what he referred to continuously today with the “MAGA Republicans”? Not a chance, man!

Instead, he has laid out a predicate for his 2024 re-election effort, which many believe he will announce soon. President Biden is going to put congressional Republicans on record as opposing the very things he said he wants to do.

I am all in with what he wants to accomplish.

Of course, looming mightily over all this is the threat by Republicans to crash the world economy by allowing the United States to default on the national debt that it has accrued since the beginning of the Republic. The president made that point, too, telling Republicans that they had a hand in running up that debt and that the U.S. Constitution requires the nation to maintain its “full faith and credit.”

Republicans, particularly the know-nothings who comprise the MAGA cabal, need to understand that they cannot mess with the national debt without collapsing the entire world economy. Got it? They had better!

President Biden’s budget as he has presented it won’t get through Congress. A big part of me believes the president — who knows how Congress works — understands that, but he has thrown down the gauntlet and dared the GOP to pick it up.

johnkanelis_92@hotmaial.com

crime news

‘Retribution’ POTUS? Eek!

Well, I thought I could ride out a third campaign for the White House by the guy who used to live there without commenting on it.

But … I cannot let this notion go.

The 45th president said this to a small gathering at the Conservative Action Political Conference: “I am your warrior, I am your justice, I am your retribution.”

Your retribution?

Well, that’s what the world can expect to hear from the disgraced, twice-impeached former POTUS as he seeks to slither his way back to power.

Retribution? Against what and/or whom? I am going to presume he means the myriad investigators who are examining whether to indict the ex-POTUS on a number of felony crimes. The Fulton County, Ga., district attorney is looking into allegations that the former president sought to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in Georgia. The Manhattan, N.Y., DA is looking into that hush money payment to the porn star to keep her quiet about a relationship that the ex-president said didn’t occur.

Then we have the special counsel hired by the attorney general who is trying to determine whether to indict the ex-POTUS for inciting the 1/6 insurrection and whether he broke the law when he spirited classified documents from the White House.

Is this what could await us if hell freezes over and this idiot returns to the White House?

It won’t happen. Of that I remain confident.

This moron’s blathering at CPAC, before a handful of fellow extremists, is worth a note only because — after all — he once sat in the Oval Office and once made decisions on behalf of this nation.

Remember when he told the Republican National Convention in 2016 that “I, alone, can fix” what is wrong with the country?

This individual remains as delusional as ever!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

How about the ‘I’ word?

The MAGA cabal within the Republican Party wants to impeach President Biden for … what, precisely, is beyond me.

We keep hearing the yammering from the likes of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who proclaims that the president is a failure. She doesn’t specify a “high crime or misdemeanor” on which she would base an impeachment. She just talks about it.

Actually, Greene is as stupid a member of the MAGA cabal as there is.

It’s good to remember the last three presidential impeachments that occurred within the past 25 years. Two of them were legit; the third was, well, questionable.

House of Representatives Republicans were looking for a reason to impeach President Clinton throughout the 1990s. When the late Kenneth Starr, the special counsel appointed to examine a real estate deal called Whitewater, began snooping around beyond his original charge, the president handed the GOP a reason to impeach him.

He lied to a federal grand jury about an affair he was having with a White House intern. Yes, Clinton committed a crime by perjuring himself. That was all Republicans needed. They impeached him on three counts. He was acquitted. I question the political motivation behind that impeachment and wonder to this day why impeach a president for lying about a dalliance.

Then came the twin impeachments of Donald Trump, who in my mind committed far worse offenses. The first impeachment was triggered by his seeking a “favor” from the Ukrainian president; Trump wanted a foreign leader to dig up dirt on Joe Biden. Wrong! He can’t do that, says the Constitution.

Then came his incitement of the assault on the Capitol on 1/6, which was a clear violation of his oath of office.

The House impeached him for each offense. The Senate trials ended up with Trump staying in office. The second trial resulted in a 57-43 vote to convict, but it wasn’t enough, as the Constitution requires a two-thirds majority to boot a POTUS from office.

One can argue that all three were “legitimate” issues for which a president could be impeached. The Clinton case was technically legit; both Trump cases were the real thing.

Now we have the MAGAites calling for Joe Biden’s impeachment.

I am left to ask: for … what?

Impeachment madness must end in the House. Joe Biden has done not a damn thing that falls remotely into the category of “impeachable offense.” All he has done is seek to right a ship of state that was damaged when he took office.

To my reckoning, he has largely succeeded. That won’t shut down the MAGA cultists. They are a shameful pack of demagogues.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

This is ‘diversity’?

Republicans are entitled to spin the conflict within their political party any way they wish.

However, the conflict is real and I do not believe it has anything to do with what the GOP honchos might refer to as “diversity of thought and policy” within a once-great political party.

It has more to do — indeed, seemingly everything to do — with whether the party will be hamstrung by the hammerlock placed on it by the MAGA/America First/election denier wing of the GOP led by the former president of the United States who claims to want his old job back.

The alternative to that wing continues to be the “establishment” Republicans who, to my way of thinking, have a long to go to resemble the Dwight Eisenhower/Teddy Roosevelt/Nelson Rockefeller/George H.W. Bush wing that once dominated thought within the GOP.

Instead, it has been hijacked by nut jobs who insist that the United States is a “Christian nation,” all the while vilifying any non-Christians. Think about that for just a moment. Is that the way Jesus Christ taught his disciples when he walked the Earth? Didn’t he counsel us to love your enemy? You get that point, I am sure.

The nut jobs rely on conspiracy theories that make no sense, have no basis in fact and which only prey on the fear of the gullible among us who seem to want to believe the rubbish that flows from the pie holes of those in power.

Black Americans aren’t welcome in the Republican Party that once was thought to be the only party that sought to free Blacks from their enslavement. Oh, how times have turned everything on its ear!

The conflict within the party that is playing out by all the notable no-shows at the Conservative Action Political Conference gathering tells me that the party isn’t seeking to highlight its “diversity.” It suggests a battle between the crackpot cabal and those who are running away from the insurgents who pose a threat to our democratic process.

I am pulling for the non-crackpots … because I want our democracy to survive!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Recalling a more civil time

I spend a good bit of time these days — when politics enters my noggin — thinking about how it used to be on the national stage.

I recently watched a YouTube video of a young U.S. senator-elect talking to David Letterman about his campaign for the Senate and how he didn’t run “negative ads.”

He lamented how the tone in 2004 had degenerated into what it became and he vowed to change it once he took office.

Barack Obama on His Multiracial Identity | Letterman – YouTube

Barack Obama didn’t succeed in changing the political tone. Indeed, he would have higher aspirations eventually and when he ascended to the presidency in 2009, he ran smack into a Republican obstruction machine operated by the GOP Senate leader, Mitch McConnell, who declared his intention would be to make Obama “a one-term president.”

It didn’t work out the way McConnell wanted … but that’s all right with me.

What also didn’t work out the way President Obama wanted was the tone of debate. It only worsened during his two terms in office and then it spiraled out of control when his successor got elected in 2016.

Who’s to shoulder the bulk of the blame? The current fire-breathers happen to be the MAGA cabal among congressional Republicans. I’ll go with that.

They need to be removed from the political stage. Which is what elections are designed to do. They are designed to cleanse the political system, to remove the toxicity from the fabric of our government. Will they do so in 2024? I damn sure hope so.

Then, perhaps, we can return to some semblance of civility where we can, as the young senator said prior to taking office in 2005, restore a climate where we can disagree over policy without condemning the other side.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

media news

How does MTG get away with this?

Marjorie Taylor Greene is one of the MAGA cultists who routinely blasts what she refers to as the “mainstream media.”

That is so rich it defies any rational response. Why? Because the second-term Georgia congresswoman — and reigning QAnon queen of the House — somehow manages to get the very same media to cover the nonsense that flies out of her pie hole.

The idiot Republican has pitched some notion of a “national divorce,” with conservative Americans separating from liberal Americans. Hmm. Ponder that one. She wants a civil war? Is that what this moron suggests?

The media cover her rubbish. Bloggers such as me comment on it, too. Therefore, I will assume responsibility for giving this nimrod far more coverage that in a perfect political world wouldn’t get it. But … she does receive it!

She has proclaimed her belief that the U.S. is a “Christian nation.” It isn’t! She derides President Biden for visiting Ukraine to proclaim the nation’s support for that nation’s war against Russian invaders.

Seemingly every utterance she makes become punch lines.

I would pledge at this moment to never cover another statement she makes, except for this bit of wisdom. Which is that it is better to keep your adversaries out front in plain sight, lest they be allowed to hide in the shadows where they could do even more harm.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

International news

Joe Biden: ‘wartime president’

Joe Biden has done the impossible by becoming a “wartime president” without a single American fighting man or woman engaging in combat with a foreign enemy.

How did the president do it? By sneaking into war-ravaged Ukraine and delivering one of the more stirring speeches in recent memory, assuring Ukrainians that the United States and our many allies worldwide stand with them in their fight against the immoral invaders from Russia.

“Kyiv stands. Ukraine stands. Democracy stands,” Biden told the Ukrainians. Yes, it’s all true.

It was a remarkable feat for President Biden to venture into Ukraine under the cover of darkness. He strolled the streets of Kyiv, the capital city that just a few months ago was under siege by Russian artillery. Yes, there were sirens blaring to warn Ukrainians of pending danger from Russian artillery. Joe Biden would not be deterred … nor should he.

The visit reportedly buoyed the Ukrainian troops who are fighting valiantly — and successfully — against Vladimir Putin’s armed forces.

To be sure, the president’s visit drew expected criticism from the MAGA wing of the Republican Party back home. These are the nimrods who express skepticism about Ukraine’s ability to fend off the Russians, who invaded their country on multiple phony pretexts uttered by Putin.

Biden, though, has stitched together a strong alliance comprising NATO and EU nations committed to opposing Putin’s land grab in Ukraine as he seeks to reincarnate the Soviet Union-style of ham-handed rule. Putin sought to weaken NATO. Thanks to Joe Biden’s leadership, all he has done is strengthened the alliance formed after World War II to protect Europe against the kind of aggression the world is witnessing at this moment.

Joe Biden spoke like a man in the middle of a struggle. Indeed, he is. President Biden is fighting to preserve democracy, which is fighting for its life against the authoritarian instincts of a brutal killer.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

What’s fair is well … fair

Fairness is forcing me to hold back on my feelings about the MAGA crowd’s unwillingness to refer to Joe Biden with the title he won during the 2020 presidential election.

The right-wing extremists refuse to use the term “President Biden” when referencing the commander in chief. But yet — and this is where the conflict arises — they attach the word “President” in front of Donald Trump’s name.

Where am I going with this?

I acknowledge freely and without apology my own refusal to afford Donald Trump the same “recognition” the MAGAites refuse to grant to President Biden.

Years ago, when Trump took the presidential oath of office, I vowed publicly on High Plains Blogger that I never would place Trump’s name after the word “President.” I have delivered on that pledge. Spare me the lecture that Trump did get elected in 2016 because he garnered enough Electoral College votes to declare victory.

It is incumbent on me, therefore, to withhold any outward criticism of the MAGA cult members who refuse to bestow the courtesy of referring to Joe Biden as President Biden. I am acutely aware that none of this has a thing to do with policy differences.

I have been tempted, to be sure, particularly when I see the likes of Ronny Jackson, the Republican-MAGA member of Congress who represents my old haunts in the Texas Panhandle, harp continually on phony allegations regarding President Biden’s mental acuity.

But … I won’t go there.

I was taught all about leveling fair criticism long ago as a much younger editorialist. This critical reluctance on my part falls into the category of remaining fair.

Hey, if the other side is going to engage in the same behavior that I did, then who in the world am I to criticize ’em? I’ll keep my powder dry for the issues that matter.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

education news

Define ‘CRT,’ please

I need someone to offer a definition of “critical race theory.” From all I have been able to discern, I have determined it is made up, fiction, something created from nothing.

And yet … culture warriors on the right wing of the political divide keep tossing CRT out there as some sort of “enemy” of what they perceive to be “normal.”

What the hell is it?

I get that it’s become a target of the likes of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is banning it in public schools there. Same for Texas, where another Republican governor — Greg Abbott — with possible White House ambitions is furthering the debate against CRT. He’s got a mostly Republican elected State Board of Education on his side to aid in the fight against an unseen and unknown adversary.

CRT is seen by some as a method to denigrate the nation’s history. What? They don’t like discussing such issues as, oh, slavery, which — yep! — existed in this country until we went to war with ourselves in 1861. Remember what you learned? White slaveowners held Blacks in bondage, owned human beings like property; Blacks were considered to be three-fifths human.

Our children aren’t supposed to learn about that? Teachers are instructed to avoid talking about it? Ridiculous! It’s part of our nation’s mostly glorious history.

Still, I am waiting for someone to define CRT to me in a manner that I can grasp.

I’m all ears.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

DeSantis: No. 1 GOP target

As I wend my way through Collin County’s back roads, I have seen precisely one 2024 campaign flag flapping in the North Texas breeze.

It has Ron DeSantis’s name on it; the flag flies in the yard of someone living off Farm to Market Road 546 between Princeton and McKinney.

So … with that I want to say a few words about the Florida governor who, I presume, is going to declare his candidacy for the presidency of the United States.

He’s every bit the charlatan as his political daddy, Donald J. Trump.

The dude wants to ban any discussion in Florida’s public schools about Black history. He has launched a “don’t say ‘gay'” campaign in the state’s public school system. DeSantis is dismissing the vaccines that have saved millions of American lives in the wake of the COVID pandemic. He attacks the mythical “critical race theory” curriculum he says is being taught.

The guy is a right-wing, MAGA-loving nut job of the first order.

In a way, though, I am kinda/sorta pulling for him to defeat Trump for the GOP nomination, although I cannot quite explain why. They’re both stomach-churning demagogues. Furthermore, I am still not yet convinced that Trump is going to get his campaign off the ground, given what I believe will be a series of criminal indictments coming down that will accuse him of some very serious crimes against the government he once swore to protect.

DeSantis, though, is a goofball who needs to be exposed for what he is. A fraud and a fruitcake.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com