Tag Archives: Congress

national news, Uncategorized

Rule of law faces test

My fellow Americans, we are going to witness whether the “rule of law” means anything to members of Congress who have been summoned to appear before the House select committee examining the 1/6 insurrection.

The committee has subpoenaed five Republican congressman who were key allies to Donald J. Trump. The committee had asked them to appear voluntarily; they declined.

So, here come the lawful orders. House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy, along with GOP Reps. Scott Perry, Jim Jordan, Mo Brooks and Andy Biggs all have been ordered to appear before the committee.

So, which is it? Are these dedicated Trumpkins going to comply with the rule of law, which they have at one time or another during their congressional careers said they honor? Or are they going to take one for their cult leader, The Donald?

The rule of law is as straightforward as it gets. A legally constituted congressional committee has issued a lawful order for five House members to talk to its members. Failure to comply with a lawful order should result in criminal punishment. Indeed, such a consequence anyone in the military who refuses to obey a lawful order. Your commanding officer tells you to do something, and you refuse? It’s off to the stockade where you would await adjudication of your offense.

I don’t know whether any or all of them will refuse to comply with the subpoena. Whoever says “no” to the House committee should face the potential consequence. The rule of law should stand in this instance as it should stand in all cases.

Let us never forget that each of these individuals swore an oath to keep faith with the U.S. Constitution. The Constitution is on the side of the committee that has acted lawfully.

We well might learn whether these congressmen were sincere when they said they would uphold the Constitution and whether their stated fealty to almighty God was real or false.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

GOP pledges grim future

(AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

When the Republican leader of the U.S. Senate pledges to make life difficult for a Democratic president and his Democratic colleagues in the Senate, we had better sit up and pay careful attention.

Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell has a proven record of employing his enormous obstructive skills to block legitimate efforts to move the country forward if they will benefit the agenda being followed by the right wing of his party.

Republicans appear poised to take over control of Congress after this year’s midterm election. If they do, the rumbling we hear comes from those Republicans who intend to exact revenge on Democrats. It will come in the form of blocking appointments or derailing legislative proposals. Hell, it might even result in Republicans unplugging congressional investigations into the criminal activity perpetrated on 1/6 by the previous GOP president.

This isn’t how good government is supposed to work.

McConnell exhibited his obstructionist skill in February 2016 when, after Justice Antonin Scalia died, he blocked then-President Obama’s attempt to replace Scalia with a SCOTUS nominee. It was “too close” to a presidential election that at the time was months away, McConnell said. He played his hand skillfully, as the GOP nominee won the election that year and then was able to push through three SCOTUS picks before his term ended in 2021.

The final pick was rammed through the Senate just weeks before the 2020 election, which made McConnell’s “too close to the election” call in 2016 nothing more than a ruse.

Don’t bet your last bitcoin that Congress will flip from Democratic to Republican control this year. But in case it does, then we had better prepare ourselves for a politically bloody clash.

It won’t be pretty.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

International news

War grabs media’s attention

War has this way of grabbing everyone’s attention, even yanking other compelling stories off the front page, pushing them off the air, relegating them to “old news.”

So it is these days with a ground war erupting in Ukraine. Russian armed forces have invaded a neighboring, sovereign nation on the orders of dictator Vladimir Putin. Media around the world are reporting on it to us who want to know how this war will play out.

I am unsure how I feel about our limited attention span. I remain deeply interested in the congressional inquiry into the cause of the 1/6 insurrection. Moreover, I want to know how the House committee is progressing in its search for the truth. It will get there in due course and I plan to be waiting with bated breath when the panel reaches its finish line.

President Biden has an aggressive agenda to help boost our already-recovering economy. It is stalled in the Senate. I want to know whether the president can parlay his extensive legislative experience into working out a compromise that can push the Build Better Back bill — or some facsimile of it — to a fruitful conclusion.

There remains a boatload of issues to be resolved, if only congressional Republicans can find a way to work the Democratic president instead of obstructing him at every turn.

OK, so all of that will still be there once our attention looks elsewhere, once we remove our gaze from Ukraine. I want that moment to arrive sooner rather than later. Not because I lust for a chance to see all those matters resolve … but because I want an end to the bloodshed.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Awaiting the SOTU

Let’s look ahead — shall we? — to President Biden’s first State of the Union speech. He’ll get to stand before a joint session of Congress and give them, and the nation, a report on the health and well-being of the nation he governs.

It is set for March 1.

These events have become sort of a handicapping exercise. Pundits will be offering views on how many members of Congress stand and applaud at the appropriate times.

Although I intend to watch the president deliver his speech, I am approaching that date with a bit of apprehension. We live in highly contentious times. Republicans seem to detest the Democratic president. Many members of the GOP congressional caucus, for instance, haven’t even accepted the fact that Joe Biden won the 2020 election. Many of the nut jobs within the Republican caucus have made speeches endorsing Donald J. Trump’s Big Lie about the vote fraud that did not exist.

How will those idiots react to anything Biden says? How many of them will even attend the SOTU? Might we hear a “You lie!” insult coming from the GOP side the way we did when President Obama delivered an SOTU years ago?

I will approach this upcoming event with bit of trepidation. I hope Congress — men and women on both sides of the great divide — will treat President Biden with all due respect. Frankly, given the madness that seems to permeate the thick skulls of many within the GOP caucus, I do have some doubt over the kind of reception the president is going to receive.

Please, GOP members, prove my concerns to be without merit.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Not evolving? Sure thing, lady

Check out this Twitter message from one of the QAnon queens of the U.S. House of Representatives, Lauren Boebert, a Colorado Republican and conspiracy theorist who needs to be committed to the nut house.

I am going to argue that the U.S. Constitution has “evolved” no fewer than 27 times since the Founders created the framework that governs the United States of America. That’s the number of amendments we have tacked onto the Constitution since 1789.

Had it not evolved, Rep. Boebert wouldn’t be allowed to vote for the nut jobs she endorses for public office. That’s just one example of how the Constitution has changed over the years.

You see, this is where the so-called “strict constructionist” philosophy of constitutional interpretation breaks down, at least in my eyes. Simpletons such as Lauren Boebert seem to believe the Founders created a perfect governing document. They didn’t, even though in real time they might have presumed that the Constitution would stand the test of time as it was written. I wasn’t there to know for certain; for that matter, neither was Lauren Boebert.

I hasten to note that the preamble to the document does stipulate that the men who wrote it said the nation should strive to create a “more perfect Union,” which — once again — suggests to me that the Constitution begged for an evolution.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

legal news

Impeach the justice!

Here’s a thought for you to ponder. It doesn’t come from me exclusively, but I read about it and have embraced it as a potential game-changer for the American judicial system.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas could be impeached by Congress because of his wife’s right-wing activism and the justice’s refusal to recuse himself from cases in which she is involved directly.

Ginni Thomas is a right-wing zealot. She has written scathing essays excoriating the 1/6 House committee examining the insurrection that sought to block the certification of the 2020 presidential election.

She and her hubby talk openly with each other about their jobs and their duties. So, how in the world does Justice Thomas vote on matters involving Ginni Thomas’s political activism?

Case in point: The court voted recently 8-1 to require Donald Trump to turn over documents to the House select committee looking into Trump’s role in inciting the riot. The lone dissent? It came from Clarence Thomas.

Good grief, man. Justice Thomas has no business sitting in on arguments involving anything regarding this issue. His wife has disqualified him in the eyes of many millions of Americans, including mine.

https://newrepublic.com/article/165118/clarence-thomas-impeachment-case-democrats

Michael Tomasky, editor of The New Republic, makes the case that Clarence Thomas is ripe for an impeachment action. What’s more, there needs to be ethical rules set up to govern the Supreme Court, the only court in America that doesn’t have any such regulatory authority watching over its conduct.

I happen to agree with him, that Clarence Thomas has disgraced himself and the nation’s highest court.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Uncategorized

I hear ya, Joe

Mr. President, allow me to say that I happen to agree with you about one aspect of the presidency that has dragged your approval rating down among Americans across the land.

I also agree that I — along with others of us — didn’t anticipate the stubborn refusal of Republican members of Congress to work with you for the common good of all of us. I mean, so help me, I actually thought that your experience as a senator and your eight years as vice president would have bought you some good will once you took over the presidency from the fraudulent imposter who occupied the office for the four previous years.

I have seen the video of Republicans and Democrats singing your praises in the Senate near the end of your term as VP. For God’s sake, even Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell said it was a pleasure to work with you. What’s he doing now? He is standing in the way of damn near everything you are trying to do.

The moron you succeeded keeps hurling epithets at McConnell, but the senator won’t accept the notion that POTUS No. 45 is unfit for office and must be derailed in his attempt to influence the political discussion going forward.

Then again, Mitch isn’t the worst of ’em. The idiot brigade among the GOP congressional caucus is being led by the likes of Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas, Josh Hawley of Missouri and Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Matt Gaetz of Florida. I could go on, Mr. President, but you get my drift, right?

I am going to stand with you, sir. I voted for you, and I am proud of my support for the agenda you are pitching. Be strong, Mr. President.

It well might be that the obstructionists in Congress will realize they are harming their own base. As you know, these tactics have this way of exacting revenge on those who enact them.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

DC riot

Liz Cheney gives him hell

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Donald Trump deserves every single hit he should be receiving from his fellow Republicans. The only issue, though, is that so damn few of them are willing to say the things that came from U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney this morning.

What in the world is happening to me in this crazy political world? I am in a state of unadulterated admiration for a conservative Republican member of Congress who is speaking the unvarnished truth about a twice-impeached carnival barker who once masqueraded as a single-term president of the United States.

Cheney, one of two GOP members of the U.S. House committee examining the events of 1/6, said this among other things this morning: “He crossed lines no American president has ever crossed before,” she said in an interview with “This Week” anchor George Stephanopoulos on Sunday. “When a president refuses to tell the mob to stop, when he refuses to defend any of the coordinate branches of government, he cannot be trusted.”

She also said that said Trump is “clearly unfit for future office [and] clearly can never be anywhere near the Oval Office ever again.”

The mob attacked Capitol Hill at Trump’s urging. Trump then said silently by, watching the mayhem overwhelm the Capitol building without ever telling the rioters to stand down, to go home, to cease the violence.

Holy crap, congresswoman!

As Trump weighs 2024 bid, top Republican calls him ‘clearly unfit for future office’ (msn.com)

She knows she is right. I know she is right. The crisis facing the Republican Party, though, is that most of its members believe Cheney is a loon and that Trump is a hero to some movement followers who adhere to that Deep State/QAnon/Big Lie horsepucky that keeps flowing from Trump’s overfed pie hole.

Cheney also said today that all 535 members of Congress — House members and senators — take the same oath of office, which is to “protect the Constitution” and follow the law. That oath, she said, makes no provision for following the dictates of a single individual.

If only others within her party would listen to the wisdom Liz Cheney delivers.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

DC riot, legal news

What will SCOTUS reveal?

Well now, my fellow Americans, it looks as though the U.S. Supreme Court might get to reveal to us whether it believes in the rule of law or whether most of its justices believe in covering the backside of a cult leader who masquerades as a former president of the United States.

Donald Trump has asked the court to block the release of White House documents related to the 1/6 riot/insurrection. It seems that the ex-POTUS believes he has an actual legal leg on which to stand by declaring some form of executive privilege.

Lower courts have ruled already he doesn’t have such standing. They point out that only current POTUSes can exert executive privilege, not those who longer are in office.

That won’t dissuade the former POTUS from trying a sort of legal mumbo-jumbo to persuade the high court that he actually can block Congress from doing its due diligence in seeking the truth behind the 1/6 insurrection. The House select committee is legally constituted and is acting within its jurisdiction and legal authority to seek White House records. It is charged with finding the whole truth behind the riot, learning who caused it and coming to some solutions on how to prevent such a dastardly thing from recurring.

Trump, though, bellows out of both sides of his pie hole. He says he did nothing wrong; yet he wants to block anyone from the records that — if we are to believe the former Liar in Chief — would prove what he alleges, that he is free and clear of wrongdoing. Am I missing something? I think not.

If the court, even with its solid conservative majority, has a shred of legal integrity, it will rule that Trump must turn the records over and must allow Congress to do the job it is entitled to do.

Many of us are waiting.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

McConnell gets pilloried … by Trumpkins

Mitch McConnell, the man once mocked as “Moscow Mitch,” knows the danger of playing games of political chicken.

The U.S. Senate Republican leader didn’t want to engage in the game with Democrats, so he maneuvered his caucus into a position to favor raising the national debt ceiling while allowing Democrats to skate through with a simple Senate majority vote, rather than a 60-vote total that is usually required; hey, it’s parliamentary gamesmanship, man!

McConnell, though, is now getting pounded by the cultists who follow Donald Trump, the moron who doesn’t want compromise in any form.

Trump’s allies are trashing Mitch McConnell for reaching a deal with Democrats to avert a catastrophic debt-ceiling default (msn.com)

Don’t misunderstand me. I am no fan of Mitch McConnell. However, I do appreciate his keen knowledge of how the Senate works and how at times he can do the old political soft-shoe when needed.

He has done it again. The national debt ceiling will lift again. We’ll be able to avoid fiscal calamity. The Trumpkins can take their commitment to what passes for “principle” and stick it … somewhere.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com