Tag Archives: MAGA

national news

Will the coward find courage?

I have gone on record calling Kevin McCarthy, the man who wants to become speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, an unmitigated coward.

The House Republican leader is trying to muster enough House votes to be elected to the post he wants to inherit from Democrat Nancy Pelosi. He doesn’t have 218 votes yet, as some of the 222 GOP House members have said they want someone else to lead the body.

How can the coward demonstrate some needed courage in the event he takes the gavel from Speaker Pelosi? He can stand up against the MAGA wing of his GOP caucus, telling them to settle down and learn to work with Democrats if they hope to get anything constructive done in the118th Congress.

Some of the MAGA-ites have declared they do not want to work with Democrats. They say working with the other party is similar to surrendering to their philosophy.

The MAGA Republicans are feeling their oats these days, despite so many like-minded candidates losing in the midterm election to Democrats. They hold plenty of power as itis, but they want more.

Whoever ascends to the speakership — and it well could be McCarthy — can show significant courage by telling the MAGA cabal to, um … stuff it.

Will it happen? I am not holding my breath!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news, national news

Not all Rs are evil … honest!

Contrary to what some readers of this blog might presume, your blogger doesn’t hate all Republican politicians. Far from it.

The detestable Republicans out there are the subscribers to the MAGA cult doctrine espoused by believers in The Big Lie.

These are the pols among the cabal of cultists who refused to impeach or convict a president who incited the assault on our government, who sought to overturn the results of a free, fair and legal presidential election. Beyond that, there exists to this very minute Republicans who are willing to put country ahead of party.

These also are Republicans whose future concerns me as we move past the midterm election and look ahead to the 2024 election. About one-third of the Senate will be on the ballot and among those up for re-election are the likes of Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah, the lone Republican who voted to convict Donald Trump in his first impeachment trial.

We witnessed already the damage that election deniers and MAGA worshipers can do to Republican officeholders. I am concerned, thus, for the future of the likes of Sen. Romney, who values his oath to the nation more than loyalty to an individual.

My congressional district in North Texas is going to be represented by a MAGA follower. I look for Republican Rep.-elect Keith Self to be front and center on the calls to look high and low for dirt on Hunter Biden, Anthony Fauci and would vote to impeach President Biden for make-believe transgressions.

We need more thoughtful pols — Democrats and Republicans — who understand that compromise is the most critical ingredient in creating good government.

I know they’re out there.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

media news

No ‘non-politics’ pledge this year

Years past have seen your friendly blogger — that’s me! — pledge to move away from politics during this holiday season.

I won’t make that pledge this year. I had only mixed success in keeping previous promises. This year I will forgo doing what appears to be the impossible … which is set politics aside in this period between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

However, I am making this pledge, which I am comfortable with, as I believe I can keep faith with it. Blog posts during this period will not contain the occasionally personal rhetoric I spew when referencing Donald J. Trump, the man I still consider to be an existential threat to our nation’s political fabric.

Accordingly, I don’t expect to be so visceral and angry even when referencing those who follow what passes for the former POTUS’s ideology. It is terribly tempting to speak the ugly truth about those who I believe hold treasonous views about our democratic process.

I’ll refrain from snorting fire.

That all said, I will continue to speak what I consider to be the truth about them, their cult leader, the misguided notions that come forth. I just won’t use angry rhetoric.

I also realize that having laid down that stipulation, readers of this blog will interpret my comments as being, well, unkind. That is their problem. Not mine.

If I sound unkind or mean, it’s all unintended. Therefore, I will offer a pre-emptive apology of a type I detest hearing from those in the news. If I offend you, I am sorry.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Boehner was right about the GOP loons

John Boehner once sat in the chair reserved for the speaker of the House. Then he walked away, because he said he was tired of dealing with the TEA party lunatics who populated the Republican caucus in the House.

Well, the TEA party loons have been replaced, more or less, by the QAnon cabal and MAGA right wingers who are seeking to control the agenda set by a new speaker.

That would be Kevin McCarthy, who appears set to take the gavel from Speaker Nancy Pelosi. McCarthy is going to remove three Democrats from key committees, accusing them of lying and of spreading anti-Semitic rhetoric.

We are heading to a new era of chaos in the House. It will be chaotic in a way that Speaker Boehner never imagined when he bailed out.

The new — and razor thin — Republican majority is going to unleash the blowhards to investigate, of all people, Dr. Anthony Fauci. They want to impeach President Biden and others of the Cabinet.

The lunatic fringe is running the lower legislative chamber … just as John Boehner spoke about in an earlier time.

What goes around is coming around once again. God help us!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Revenge on its way

We had better steel ourselves for what appears to be shaping up as the new Congress gets set to takes office in January.

Of particular concern is the House of Representatives, which will have slim Republican majority. What’s on tap? Vengeance, man!

House GOP leaders have made it clear they intend to go after Hunter Biden, his business interests and whether his father — the president of the United States — is somehow implicated in allegedly illegal activity.

Climate change? Gun violence? Roe v. Wade? War and peace? Forget about it!

No. The House GOP is sighting its weaponry on Hunter Biden. They are angry because Democrats managed to impeach the former POTUS twice, once for soliciting political help from a foreign government and once for inciting an insurrection. The second impeachment resulted in a Senate trial in which 57 out of 100 senators voted to convict, but it didn’t meet the two-thirds threshold required by the Constitution.

So, here comes the revenge.

You want good government? Or the search for common ground? Constructive legislation? Don’t make me laugh!

The MAGA wing of the GOP is positioned now to put maximum pressure on congressional leadership. They have shown zero reluctance to fight back when any opportunity presents itself … or when they can create their own opportunities.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Lame-duck Congress needs to soar

One usually doesn’t expect much from lame ducks, whether they are politicians or the governing bodies in which they serve.

That is decidedly not the case involving the current Congress, which is now officially entering its lame-duck status. Those of us who are concerned about the status of good government and of congressional investigations into the effort to overturn a free and fair election are expecting a great deal out of this lame duck Congress.

I shall specify.

Republicans who are taking over leadership of the next Congress say they intend to investigate — get ready for it! — Hunter Biden’s business dealings. Yes, President Biden’s son is being targeted for investigation. What about inflation? What about the Ukraine War? What about climate change? Or gun violence? Hey, that’ll have to wait until the GOP finishes its probe into Hunter Biden’s business activity! What utter crap!

Then we have the 1/6 committee’s report. The House select panel is finishing up its own probe into Donald J. Trump’s effort to overturn the election that tossed him out of office. The committee led by Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., needs to get its findings on the record. House Republican leaders are all but certain to toss it aside once they assume power.

The House GOP’s slim majority apparently gives the nut job wing of the Republican caucus even more power. The MAGA/Big Liar cabal is going to lean hard on the presumptive speaker, Kevin McCarthy, to do its bidding. It will be fascinating in the extreme to see whether McCarthy resists their demands and gives the more establishment members of his caucus — not to mention the Democrats — more of his attention.

McCarthy has shown a cowardly tendency, sad to say, toward kowtowing to the nut jobs — starting with the Nut Job in Chief, one Donald John Trump. McCarthy stood on the floor immediately after the assault on the Capitol on 1/6 and declared that Trump was singularly responsible for inciting the assault on our government. Then he ventured to Mar-a-Lago, shook Trump’s hand and mugged for the cameras as if to tell the Insurrectionist in Chief, “Hey, it’s OK now. I was just kidding when I said those things. I’m with ya.”

Thus, the lame-duck Congress becomes important. Highly important, in fact.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Will majority be worth it?

Let’s presume that the conventional wisdom holds up in the wake of the 2022 midterm election, which is that Republicans are going to win a majority of the House seats and will be in charge when the next Congress convenes in January.

What I am going to wonder aloud is whether the House GOP leadership team can govern. Will it be able to control its own members, let alone dictate the flow of legislation that comes from the lower legislative chamber?

I doubt it. Seriously!

House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy was thought to be a shoo-in for speaker if Republicans took command. Even that’s in doubt today.

McCarthy has pissed off the right-wing Freedom Caucus wing of his House members. He also has angered the establishment wing of those who call themselves Republicans. The MAGA lovers wanted a much larger majority; they won’t get it. The establishment wing of the GOP wants to work with Democrats on legislation; that likely won’t happen, either, given Democrats’ anger at McCarthy over his back-tracking on Donald Trump’s role in the 1/6 insurrection.

I keep seeing models suggesting Republicans will win 219 House seats; Democrats are slated to occupy 216 of them. The majority party needs 218 to take command. A one-seat cushion isn’t very, um, secure … you know?

This all makes the GOP majority practically worthless.

The current speaker, Democrat Nancy Pelosi, is holding out hope that her party can squeak through by retaining a majority. That’s brave talk from a battle-tested political warrior.

Even though I am sitting in the peanut gallery, the cheap-seat view tells me that Republicans are going to eke out their cherished majority. However, I am going to wonder whether it’s worth having.

As the saying goes, elections do have consequences. We’re going to get a good look at how those consequences play out once the new Congress takes over.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

This story needs to be told

The media are grossly underreporting a stunning result of the 2022 midterm election, which involves a Democrat flipping a GOP-held seat in the House of Representatives.

What’s more, this story takes place in a congressional district just across the Columbia River from my Portland, Ore., hometown. I now intend to give this story some of the attention it deserves.

U.S. Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler voted in 2021 to impeach Donald J. Trump after Trump incited the Jan. 6 insurrection on Capitol Hill. Beutler represents Washington state’s Third Congressional District, which includes Clark County, just across river from Portland.

Beutler also is a Republican. Her payback for voting to impeach the crooked POTUS was to face a GOP primary foe this year. Joe Kent, a MAGA-worshiping Trump sycophant defeated Beutler in the primary.

Oh, but wait! Then Kent, running for election in the midterm, got thumped out of office by Democrat Marie Gleusenkamp Perez.

Karma is wonderful … you know?

Washington’s Third Congressional District voters provided a stunning statement of disapproval of The Big Lie, of the Trump cult message of “fraud” that doesn’t exist.

It speaks as well as any individual House election result of just what drove voters to keep the Senate in Democratic hands and which could result in Democrats maintaining control of the House of Representatives. I acknowledge the latter event isn’t likely; but then again, they haven’t stopped counting the ballots in about 20 House districts.

The message to the MAGA lovers and the Big Liars out there ought to be crystal clear. The nation is weary of the conspiracy theories put forth by those who adhere to such nonsense.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news, national news, political news, State news

Bidding farewell to nutjobs

Let us now bid a hearty and heartfelt adieu to the bevy of blowhards who sought to infect government at all levels with their toxic views about election denial and how they intend to “make America great again.”

Many of them — not all, I am sad to acknowledge — got their proverbial melons thumped by Democrats in the 2022 midterm election. They were — and are — unqualified and unfit for public office. Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania is my example du jour of the kind of nut case that had no business taking a much more qualified opponent, John Fetterman, to the distance before losing the contest for the U.S. Senate.

Oz had been selected to run as a Republican by Donald John Trump. Oz’s political credentials, simply put, do not exist. He’s gone. I hope he’s gone forever.

Trump’s fingerprints are all over the political corpses that litter the roadway to oblivion. Election denier Doug Mastriano lost his bid to become Pennsylvania governor. Another denier, Kari Lake, might win the Arizona governor’s race over a more qualified Democrat, Kelly Hobbs; then again, those results could go either way.

Americans from coast to coast have been “treated,” if that’s the right word, to the foolishness and rubbish that come from so damn many so-called Republicans these days.

Texas, where I live, has its share of GOP dipsh**s as well. I’ll single out Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who won re-election to a third term despite being indicted — just months after taking office in 2015 — for securities fraud and for showing time and again that he cannot be trusted to represent the state’s interests with competence and fairness.

So … with that I want to say “so long” to the cabal of kooks who populated our ballot. I am proud to say that none of you got my vote or my stated support on this blog.

I remain committed to the policy of good government and I long for the day when we can return to a two-party system that produces vigorous discussion and debate on issues based on truth. The Big Lie needs to die as miserable a death as possible.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news, political news

Democratic process is alive and thriving

We cast our ballots this morning for all the contests facing us in this midterm election, but I want to offer a brief immediate takeaway from what we noticed when we drove to our polling place.

We approached the Princeton (Texas) Community Center and noticed (a) a parking lot full of vehicles, (b) lots of signs extolling the virtues of candidates and issues and (c) a line at the polling station that was stretching out the door.

My thought? The democratic process is alive and well in our Collin County community.

I don’t know how many of our city of more than 20,000 residents voted early. I just was struck by the active Election Day participation we noticed this morning.

It gives me hope that our process will survive the onslaught it is enduring at the moment from those who seek to undermine it.

I am acutely aware that a momentary glimpse of a polling station doesn’t precisely qualify as a mountain of empirical evidence of what I have concluded.

I will accept it, though, as sufficient reason to have hope that our electoral process is working.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com