Tag Archives: Donald Trump

media news, national news

We can breathe again!

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I cannot possibly take credit for this, for it came brilliantly from a young broadcast journalist to whom my wife and I were listening this afternoon.

Yasmin Vossoughian, an MSNBC anchor, offered an insightful analysis of what the nation and the world have just experienced in the past week: the end of Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial.

Vossoughian said, simply, that we are now able to breathe again. Donald Trump no longer is president, and for that I sense many of us are grateful for reasons that go far beyond the contemptible manner in which he conducted himself as president.

He took the air out of the proverbial room seemingly every day he was in office. Indeed, it seems like the longest four years in many of our lives … you know?

Bloggers like me were sucked into the maelstrom that Trump created. The media, too. Yes, the folks Trump labeled as the “enemy of the people” became his most visible enablers.

Now, though, we can turn our attention to other things. Issues abound. Crises are all over the place.

We’re still waging war against a killer pandemic; our economy has collapsed; we have an environment in trouble; many Americans are treated unfairly by police authorities only because of the color of their skin.

President Biden won’t suck the air out of the room the way his immediate predecessor did. That is more than OK with me.

As for the media, my hope is that reporters also will relish the opportunity to chronicle the struggles that require government’s attention. My sense, given my own experience, is that they will welcome the relief from the exhaustion from which they will need a bit of time to recover.

national news

Trump to linger a while

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

This much is becoming evident the day after the U.S. Senate failed to convict Donald Trump of inciting the insurrection on Jan. 6.

The ex-president is going to remain within our field of vision for a good bit longer. As much as I want him to fade into the shadows, never to be seen or heard again, I fear my wish will go ignored.

The media cannot seem to get enough of this guy. He fired off a statement Saturday after 57 senators voted to convict him of inciting the riot that stormed Capitol Hill; the guilty votes weren’t sufficient to register as a conviction by the body, though. I’ll call it a “conviction” only because it was a bipartisan vote to punish Trump, with seven Republicans joining their Democratic colleagues to stand for the Constitution and the sacred oaths they took.

Now the talk centers on what it means for the Republican Party. Trump still commands a huge following among the GOP faithful, although their fealty is aimed at the man and not party principle or philosophy.

The 2022 midterm election already is looming just over the horizon and so the pundit class will examine the influence that Trump might exert on the GOP primary fields as they develop across the land. Given that I am not among the GOP faithful, it doesn’t matter very much to me, other than what it might portend for the future of a once-great political party.

I’ve had some critics of this blog suggest I cannot get past Donald Trump. They’re right to this extent: For as long as the media continue to pay attention to him, I feel compelled to offer commentary on what flies out of his mouth. I will do so, albeit a good bit more sparingly than when he was masquerading as president of the U.S. of A.

He’s still out there. Lurking, preening and prancing. That’s what narcissists do. I just want him to vanish.

national news

End of a disgraceful era

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

The U.S. Senate could have convicted Donald John Trump of inciting an insurrection. It didn’t, falling 10 guilty votes short of the constitutional requirement for conviction.

Does this vote today now signal a revived Donald Trump, the guy who lost re-election to President Joe Biden? I am not going to endorse that scenario.

I am going to hold onto the belief that we have witnessed in real time the demise of a disgraceful era in American political history.

Trump won an acquittal in name only. We watched 57 senators vote to convict him, with 43 of them voting not guilty. The Constitution requires 67 conviction votes to make it official. Let’s face reality. Most of the Senate convicted him, by a healthy margin.

Trump acquitted, denounced in historic impeachment trial (msn.com)

How does Trump now parlay that knowledge into a run for the presidency once again in 2024? My view is that he cannot. Trump has been handed his genitals on a plate by a Senate vote that officially fell short of conviction, but which has delivered an important symbolic conviction that will stain him forever.

Trump incited the insurrection that damn near brought our democratic process to a halt. The riot he provoked could have killed many more people than those who did die. It could have brought harm to Vice President Mike Pence, to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi or any other political leader who could have been trampled by the rampaging mob. Thank goodness it didn’t.

I never will accept the Senate’s final verdict as an “acquittal” in the true sense of the term. Trump, though, is going to trumpet the verdict as a triumph. It was nothing of the sort.

That all stated, I now intend to give Donald Trump’s future political adventures all the attention they deserve.

Which is none.

Don’t misunderstand me. I will comment on the damage he has done. I will offer perspective on the work that President Biden and others are doing to repair that damage. Be sure, too, that we all should keep our eyes and ears open to the investigations under way in places like New York and Georgia, where local prosecutors are examining whether to file criminal charges against the ex-president.

Donald Trump’s political future? I believe he is a goner.

national news

Trump skates … again!

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

It’s over.

The ending didn’t produce a result that I wanted. Fifty-seven U.S. senators voted to convict Donald Trump of inciting an insurrection against the government of this country; 43 of them voted “not guilty.”

But … the U.S. Constitution requires 10 more “guilty” votes to hold the ex-president accountable for what I know he did on Jan. 6, which was to whip an angry crowd into a frenzy, to march on Capitol Hill and to subvert Congress’s effort to certify a duly conducted free and fair election for president.

I acknowledge that the result is final. Most of our senators put country ahead of party or ahead of a man. Seven Republicans mustered up the guts to do the right thing.

There will be a lot of hand-wringing and gnashing of teeth over the post-vote speech delivered by Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell, which was riveting in its own right. McConnell had just minutes before cast a not guilty vote for Donald Trump. Then he stood before the nation and said, in effect, that Trump did all the things that the impeachment article alleged he did. He incited the crowd, which acted on the then-president’s own words.

McConnell also said that Trump didn’t get away with anything, that he will be held accountable later. Hmm.

So, we can move on to more pressing matters that are relevant to the here and now. President Biden is at work seeking to press Congress for COVID relief; we need help to jump-start the economy; we have environmental concerns that pose an existential threat to our national security; we have racial unrest still boiling in communities across the land.

I am ready to put this sorry episode aside. However, I won’t forget it.

Nor will I ever forgive Texas’s two senators — Ted Cruz and John Cornyn — for refusing to recognize what we all witnessed in real time, that Donald John Trump interfered in a free and fair election.

DC riot, national news

Impeachment still matters

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Unless hell freezes over — and that seems remotely possible as North Texas shivers from an Arctic blast — we are going to witness a U.S. Senate trial acquittal of Donald John Trump.

It’s good, though, to think of what an impeachment really means and whether it really still matters.

I am willing to argue that it matters a lot. It matters even when the politics of the moment dictates a preordained outcome that doesn’t result in what ought to be a sure conviction and some form of punishment for the president who stood trial.

Indeed, I will maintain for the rest of my life that Donald Trump committed a high crime against the government by inciting that riot on Jan. 6 that damn near wiped out our democratic process. The politics of this moment, though, precluded a conviction.

Why? Because a 50-50 Senate split required 17 Republicans to join their Democratic colleagues in convicting Trump. You can bet your last greenback that Democrats would stand together; the GOP caucus is more split, with some of them voting with the Dems. But not enough.

Impeachment, though, remains a viable option for the legislative branch to act against a rogue president, who runs the executive branch of government. Make no mistake at all: Donald Trump ran rogue, roughshod over the government.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, who led the first House impeachment trial team in early 2020, predicted that he would run wild if he were acquitted. He was and he did.

Political tides do ebb and flow. Their influences are subject to change. The tides of the moment just wouldn’t allow GOP senators to do the right thing. Trump’s hold on the Republican Party remains formidable, I suppose. So we have to live with an outcome that many of us detest.

None of this detracts from the value of impeaching a president who commits a high crime … and oh brother, the 45th president of the U.S. surely deserves to be convicted.

national news

Let’s move on … but do not forget!

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Our latest national nightmare is winding its way to a conclusion.

I’ll toss a single bouquet at Donald Trump’s legal team. It took next to no time to finish its job in defending their client in the U.S. Senate trial against charges that he incited an insurrection against the U.S. government.

I don’t believe Trump’s team made the case. But that’s just me. He did what the House of Representatives alleged he did in its impeachment article. The remaining task will be for the Senate to cast its vote.

I do not expect a conviction. Trump will walk away. The Constitution sets a high bar for conviction, two-thirds of the senators have to agree; they won’t get there.

What now? Well, it is time to move on. It is not time to forget. Nor is it time to shove aside what happened on the Sixth of January. What happened was an egregious attack on our system of government. It was an attack on our democratic process.

The terrorists who stormed Capitol Hill intended to stop Congress from fulfilling its constitutional duty of certifying the results of an election that Donald Trump lost. He still hasn’t accepted his defeat, that Joe Biden is now president.

The Senate very soon can get busy with other pressing matters. COVID relief needs approval. There needs to be attention paid to economic revival. President Biden can now step out of the shadows cast by the impeachment trial and insert his own efforts at fixing what ails the nation.

I am fine with that. I only wish we could anticipate a more just outcome from the Senate trial. We won’t get it.

Instead, we are going to witness a majority of Republican senators continue to lick the boots of a cult figure. There might be a few crossovers, just not enough of them.

If I was King of the World, I would suggest that the Republican Party needs to assess whether it believes that “character matters,” and that it hues to the tenets of inclusion that made it a great political party. The Party of Trump represents none of it.

But, hey, that’s politics, right?

national news

Why acquit this potential foe?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

If there are any major villains among the cast of U.S. Senate Republicans willing to acquit Donald John Trump on charges that he incited that hideous riot on Jan. 6, they likely are Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Josh Hawley of Missouri.

Think about this little bit of political dynamism, if you will.

Both of these men seem to care little about the Senate. They both want to be president of the United States. Cruz ran for the big office in 2016, only to lose to the guy he called a “sniveling coward,” a “narcissist the likes of which we haven’t seen,” a “pathological liar” and an “amoral” individual. Hawley also appears to have his eyes on the prize beyond the Senate.

So, here’s the quandary they face. How do they vote to acquit someone and, therefore, enable him to possibly enter the 2024 presidential race having been freed of the charges leveled against him by the House impeachment? Trump might be seen in some circles as a major obstacle to anyone among the GOP ranks of pretenders seeking to ascend to the presidency.

Why not, then, vote to convict and lobby your other colleagues to do the same? Keep the Trump monster caged up by voting to ban him from ever seeking federal public office again.

Oh, wait! I almost forgot something. Doing all of that would anger the Trumpkin Corps of voters who remain loyal to the former Insurrectionist in Chief.

Whatever. I am one American voter/patriot who believes Donald Trump’s future as a political candidate is, shall we say … toast! No matter what the Senate decides at the end of this trial.

national news

Trump reveals his ‘love’

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Donald John Trump told the rioters/terrorists/mobsters/hooligans/thugs who stormed Capitol Hill on the Sixth of January that he “loved” them.

The lame-duck president of the United States has not yet expressed any public “love” for the Capitol Police officers who fought the rioters. He hasn’t expressed any “love” for the individuals who were injured. Trump hasn’t offered a single word of condolence or compassion for those who died in the melee. Donald Trump has yet to say a single word out loud and in public about the threat of assassination that confronted then-Vice President Mike Pence and the members of both congressional chambers who were targeted by the rioters.

Does that tell you all you need to know about the individual who now stands trial in the Senate for inciting the rioters to commit the crimes against the nation?

I need to know nothing more about this individual.

national news

Lesson needs to be learned

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Well, my fellow Americans … we have been treated to a serious lesson on the fragility, yet sturdiness, of our democracy.

The first half of the Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial has concluded in the U.S. Senate. The House of Representatives prosecutors — members of the House, the managers — made, in my view, a compelling case for conviction. That Trump incited an insurrection against the government he took an oath to protect and defend.

He didn’t do either during his single term as president. He incited a riotous mob of terrorists on Jan. 6, exhorting them to march on Capitol Hill and intervene in Congress doing its job on that day, which was to certify the results of the 2020 presidential election.

We saw in graphic terms how close the terrorists came to bringing physical harm to Congress, and to the system of government we cherish.

They didn’t succeed. Our democracy stands to this day. It stands strong and it will survive this horrendous episode.

Donald Trump’s legal team takes the Senate floor on Friday. They say they can make their case in a single day. I am going to go out on a limb here: Trump’s team will talk past the House managers. They will divert the argument, send it down another path.

They cannot argue against the constitutionality of the trial. The Senate has voted already that the trial met constitutional standards. Nor can they possibly defend what transpired on Jan. 6. I double-dog dare them to suggest that Donald Trump’s remarks on The Ellipse didn’t incite the mob to attack the Capitol Building, egg the mobsters to smash windows, to ransack offices, to injure and kill people.

They won’t go there. Instead, I am going to presume Trump’s lawyers might hang their defense on the First Amendment, suggesting that Trump merely was exercising his constitutional free-speech guarantees by declaring his opinion that the election was stolen from him. You know, though, that it wasn’t.

Sigh …

I am left then to salute the founders of this great nation for establishing a governing framework that can withstand the assault that developed on Jan. 6. It was a full-on frontal attack incited by a lame-duck president.

He is likely to get away with what he did; the Senate won’t convict him of the deed I happen to believe he committed. However, his hideous conduct is now on the record for history to judge. Americans have seen it unfold in real time. I don’t know about you, but I never will forget what we learned on the floor of the U.S. Senate.

We must not commit such a horrendous error — electing someone of this individual’s ilk — ever again.

DC riot, Donald Trump, national news

Testimony tears at our soul

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

My heart is breaking.

It breaks as I watch the video being presented by the members of Congress who are making the case to convict Donald John Trump of inciting an insurrection against the federal government.

I fear that it will shatter into a zillion pieces if Republican senators who are sitting in judgment of the ex-president decide to hang with him and vote to acquit this monstrous individual of the crimes for which the House of Representatives impeached him … for the second time!

Make no mistake about this: I have no illusion about whether the video, audio and the text that House managers have presented will sway enough of them to convict this ghastly individual of incitement.

We keep hearing throughout the day that members of the GOP Senate caucus aren’t even watching the videos that House managers present them. They reportedly are doodling on note pads, reading books, looking everywhere except at the screen. Are they not moved? Do they remain committed to the cult leader who masqueraded as a Republican president of the United States?

My goodness! The evidence today tells the world about how the riotous mob that stormed Capitol Hill intended to — and this is tough to write — assassinate Vice President Mike Pence. How in the name of all that is holy and sacred does one accept any portion of that as being normal? I fear the worst, that there will be an insufficient number of Senate Republicans who will listen to their conscience and vote to convict the ex-president of what they know he has done.

That’s in good measure why my heart is breaking while watching this Senate trial unfold.

What is left of my eternal optimism is being tested mightily by what I fear will be the result of this trial.

My broken heart might be healed partially, however, by the knowledge that more than five or six GOP senators will heed the whispers from their conscience.

And that a majority of senators will render a verdict that destroys this monster’s political future.