Tag Archives: MAGA

national news

Only half of a Congress …

Here’s something to ponder: At this moment, we have only half of a Congress.

There is no House of Representatives. All 435 members of the House are congresspeople-elect. None has taken the oath of office. Why? Because a cabal of Republican hardline, extremist, MAGA-supporting nut jobs are withholding their support for Kevin McCarthy as the next speaker of the House.

Nothing gets done without a speaker. No votes. No committee assignments. No swearing-in ceremonies. Not a damn thing, man!

Yes, the fruitcake caucus is holding our government hostage because they want the next speaker of the House to do its bidding … as if McCarthy isn’t already on board.

This isn’t good government. It is no government!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Sickening boorishness on display

Political boorishness is a remarkable trait to witness unfolding in real time, especially when it is aimed at a visiting head of state.

Consider what happened Wednesday night as most members of Congress stood and applauded the entry of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy into the House chamber to speak to a joint session of Congress.

At least two Republican House members — members of should be called the MAGA Cult Cabal — chose to sit on their hands. I refer to Lauren Boebert of Colorado and Matt Gaetz of Florida.

Think for just a moment about the man they were snubbing. President Zelenskyy came to this country at considerable risk to his safety to speak to Americans about the struggle he is fighting against the illegal and immoral invasion of his country by Russian military forces.

He spoke to us from the podium in the House chamber in English. He offered his profound and heartfelt thanks for the support shown by President Biden and by members of both parties serving in the House and Senate. He told us the money we are spending for Ukrainian defense is “not charity,” but it is an “investment” in Ukraine’s struggle on behalf of democratic principles.

Not everyone is on board with that, obviously. Boebert and Gaetz represent a segment of Congress that prefers to attach strings to our aid to Ukraine. However, for these two nimrods to sit on their hands and not extend to a heroic head of state the courtesy of their applause is reprehensible on its face.

They sat there intending to make some sort of idiotic statement.

It is fair to wonder whether the likes of Boebert and Gaetz will ever condemn in loud voices the war crimes that are occurring in Ukraine as Russian thug Vladimir Putin orders his troops to fire on schools, hospitals and residential developments, inflicting casualties on women and children.

They remain silent on those events while demonstrating their boorishness in the presence of a hero.

Sickening.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Boehner shows touch of grace

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Just to let us know how things used to be in Washington, D.C., where Democrats and Republicans could say nice things about each out loud and in public, up stepped a former GOP House speaker to offer high praise to the individual who succeeded him.

John Boehner got misty while saluting the career of Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Boehner said he wished for his daughter to emulate Pelosi, who is stepping down as speaker in January as the Republicans prepare to take control of the House of Representatives. Imagine any of the MAGA morons doing such a thing.

It’s not yet clear who among the GOP lawmakers will succeed Pelosi. Suffice, though, to acknowledge that whoever it is likely won’t show nearly any of the grace and class that Boehner has shown.

You see, Boehner — who battled hard against President Obama’s agenda — is able to set aside partisan differences to honor the service and love of country shown by a political adversary.

To think as well that Boehner only stepped away from the speaker’s chair in 2015. In just seven years, the atmosphere in D.C. has gone from relatively clear to damn near toxic in the partisan vitriol that fills the air.

I should point out that in today’s world, the attack on Pelosi’s husband, Paul, by a deranged moron who was looking to do physical harm to the speaker, has actually drawn snide and snarky comments from some prominent Republicans.

Thanks, therefore, belong to former Speaker Boehner for demonstrating a needed touch of class.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news, national news

Ah, yes, the ‘sarcasm’ defense

Congress’s reigning QAnon queen, Marjorie Taylor Greene, has tossed out the old “it was sarcasm” canard in response to criticism she has received for making what sounds for all the world like a statement of a traitor.

Greene told a roomful of MAGA sycophants that had she been running the show on 1/6, the assault on the Capitol that day would have succeeded and that Donald Trump would have been able to overturn the 2020 presidential election result and returned to the White House.

They cheered her for those treasonous remarks. Did she say in the moment that it was all for fun? Did she walk any of it back? Ohhh, no. She responded only when others began reporting on the remarks and calling them what they are: the moronic muttering of an individual who has no business making laws that affect you and me.

The Georgia Republican, feeling emboldened I am sure by her re-election this past month, is getting ready to return for just her second term in the House of Representatives. To think that this certifiable idiot has been able to win election in the first place, win re-election to a new term and then possibly take the reins of congressional leadership is utterly astounding.

God help us!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

State news

Recall the old ways, legislators

As the Texas Legislature prepares to commence its 88th legislative assembly next month, I would like to offer this brief admonition.

It is that Texas state government works best when legislators from both major parties find common ground, work under rules that give the minority party a slice of power and find compromise whenever possible.

I have a nagging feeling that today’s legislative leadership is going to heed the saber-rattling that comes from the Freedom Caucus, the TEA party, the MAGA crowd and assorted right-wing fruitcakes as they prepare to legislate their way through this 140-day session.

It need not be that way.

We once had a Republican governor, George W. Bush, who worked tightly with the likes of Democratic Lt. Gov. Bob Bullock and Democratic House Speaker Pete Laney. Democrats controlled the Legislature in 1995 when Bush took over as governor after defeating Democratic Gov. Ann Richards. Bush was new then to elective politics, but he turned out to be the quickest study imaginable as he grasped instantly the need to work with the other guys under the Texas state capitol dome.

He would later, of course, be elected president, handing the governorship over to fellow Republican Rick Perry, who didn’t quite grasp the Bush formula for legislative success.

It’s different these days. Republicans control the governor’s office and both legislative chambers. There still is a sizable Democratic minority in both the state House and Senate, some of whose members remember how it used to be in Austin.

House Speaker Dade Phelan appears slated to another term as the Man of the House. If he follows form, he will appoint House Democrats to committee chairs. I don’t have as much faith in Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who presides over the Senate. But … bipartisan cooperation in one out of two legislative chambers is better than none.

The session will be busy. Legislators need to fix our electrical grid. They keep yapping about reducing property taxes. Our highways need repair.

I just want them all to keep their eyes on the prize and not worry about offending the fire breathers who make up both of their bases.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Now will GOP reassess itself?

Mitt Romney’s loss to President Obama in the 2012 presidential election prompted the Republican Party to determine it needed a thorough examination of its future.

The party pledged to search its soul and look for ways to appeal to more Blacks, Hispanics, suburban women and other demographic groups known to be friendlier to Democrats.

I don’t know what the party came up with, but four years later it nominated a certifiable racist, sexual assailant, pathological liar as its presidential candidate. Donald Trump then won the 2016 election. The party since has taken many steps backward from where it was when Romney led the GOP.

I want the Republican Party to reassess its position these days as much as Republicans do … if only for different reasons.

I remain committed (more or less) to Democratic Party principles. I also want a return to honest debate pitting philosophies against each other. Today’s Republican Party is too enamored with The Big Lie, with MAGA demagoguery and with fealty to Donald Trump.

Furthermore, I want to state for the record once again that Trump entered politics in 2016 without spending a moment of his disgusting life working to improve people’s lives. Even after serving a term as president, public service remains an unknown concept to Trump.

I would welcome a return to honest and vigorous debate. I relish a good fight between politicians with serious policy disagreements. We aren’t getting that quality of discourse now. Instead, as we just witnessed, we saw a stable of Republicans defeated because they had earned the anointment of the twice-impeached former POTUS, who backed them because they swilled the Big Lie Kool-Aid.

We can do better than that.

Mitt Romney’s narrow loss a decade ago should have taught Republicans a valuable lesson. It didn’t. Maybe now the GOP will heed the message that voters are telling them.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Impeach Biden … for this?

Marjorie Taylor Greene stands all alone among the dumb-dumbs who occupy too many seats in the U.S. House of Representatives.

The Georgia Republican — known to be a QAnon queen, an election denier, a MAGA fanatic and all-round detestable individual — says President Biden should be impeached for (get a load of this!) agreeing to bring Brittney Griner home from a Russian prison.

Hmm. OK. Let’s parse this for a minute, eh?

Greene wants former Marine Paul Whelan to come home, too. Here’s a news flash: So do I, so does Joe Biden, so do all Americans with half a heart.

President Biden has told us all — except that Greene apparently wasn’t listening — that he will “not stop” working to bring Whelan home. The Russians, we also have learned, insisted on a one-for-one swap, Griner in exchange for the arms dealer Viktor Bout.

Does anyone believe seriously that Joe Biden doesn’t want Whelan to come home?

Meanwhile, what’s with the impeachment talk from the moronic congresswoman who just won re-election to her second term in the House? What is the “high crime” she would seek to hang on the president?

OK, I know she isn’t alone among the MAGA cultists who comprise much of the House GOP caucus. She’s got plenty of loudmouthed company, such as Matt Gaetz of Florida, Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Paul Gosar of Arizona, and Jim Jordan of Ohio to name just four of ’em. They all must sit around in the House cafeteria conspiring to create all the mischief they can muster up.

Frankly, Marjorie Taylor Greene and her ilk should give us all plenty of concern. She stands to wield outsized power in the next Congress, which will be run by Republicans who hold onto a slim majority. She will have the ear of the next speaker of the House.

To think that this individual actually votes on laws that affect all of us. Wow! This person’s stupidity is a thing to behold.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news, political news

Rep. Jackson: MAGA fool

Ronny Jackson has me scratching my noggin bloody. The newly re-elected freshman U.S. representative from Amarillo has emerged as one of the nation’s premier MAGA election denying nut jobs in Congress.

And to think he represents what used to be my congressional district, where my wife and I lived for 23 years before we moved to the Metroplex.

What drives me just this side of the funny farm are his incessant Twitter messages questioning President Biden’s fitness for office. Indeed, I have wondered about Jackson’s fitness for the office he occupies.

It staggers me as well to believe the residents of the13th Congressional District would re-elect this guy, let alone elect him in the first place in 2020.

The 13th District was represented for the entire length of my journalism career in Amarillo by Republican Mac Thornberry of Clarendon. Thornberry was a back bencher for much of his time in Congress. Then he earned the chairmanship of the House Armed Services Committee. For a time, Thornberry occupied a ringside seat of military policy, and he did his job with a huge measure of dignity and decorum I do not see in the individual who succeeded him.

What I continue to see in Jackson are the antics of a raving lunatic. I know that sounds strange to say, given that Jackson is a retired Navy admiral and is a former physician who served two presidents: Barack Obama and Donald Trump.

Since being elected to Congress after moving into the 13th District, though, Jackson has gone mad. He is a frequent guest on the Fox Propaganda Network, spouting the trash about Joe Biden –without, of course, ever being challenged by his interviewers.

Whenever I read a tweet from Jackson that accuses the president of being everything but the spawn of Satan, I cannot stop wondering: What in the world would Jackson do if the 13th Congressional District needed a presidential declaration in the case of dire emergency? Would he ask for it?

It is as if Jackson is burning every bridge there is between the congressional district he represents and the White House.

I just don’t get it.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

GOP might lose seat in House? Really?

Did I hear this correctly, that a rural Arizona county’s refusal to certify the 2022 midterm election result could cost the Republican Party a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives?

That’s what might be playing out in Cochise County, Ariz., where officials are declining to certify the results on the basis of phony vote fraud allegations.

The payoff could be, well, staggering!

According to Bloomberg News: That would flip the results of the race for Arizona’s Sixth Congressional District, where Republican Juan Ciscomani holds a 5,232-vote lead over Democrat Kirsten Engel in unofficial results, as well as the race for state Superintendent of Public Instruction, where the Republican candidate has a narrow lead.

An Arizona County’s Refusal to Certify Election Results Could Cost GOP a House Seat (msn.com)

There you go. The MAGA cultists are so intent on proving a discredited allegation of election corruption that they are willing to sacrifice a Republican candidate for Congress.

Fine. Let ’em proceed! Let the rest of us laugh out butts off, too!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

media news

Enjoying the after life

No, I am not dead. Not by the longest shot imaginable. I am delighted to report that there once was a time — long ago — that I wondered whether I would enjoy my life once I quit working full time.

I am even more delighted to tell you that the answer is yes. Not just yes, but hell yes. I am enjoying myself more than I could have imagined when I was full of piss and vinegar.

Time has this way of tempering one’s passions. It tempered mine, to a degree, particularly the passion I had every day as I prepared to go to work as a newspaper journalist. It did temper my passion, though, for commenting on issues of the day. I remain dedicated to that proposition more than ever … or so it seems. The difference now is that my commentaries are solely my own and I do not answer to an editor of a publisher.

That is not to say that I am free of restraints. Good taste and societal norms do keep me reined in a bit … but it’s only just a bit.

I remain delighted and full of energy to keep writing this blog and keep my head in the game.

One of the things I learned a decade ago when my career ended that there surely is a post-journalism after life. I am living proof that it exists. Unlike the big after life, I am still around to tell you about it.

I just wanted to share the good news with you.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com