Tag Archives: Joe Biden

national news

These lawmakers need to be sanctioned

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

This isn’t likely to happen, but it damn near should happen.

The 126 Republicans who joined a hideous lawsuit that sought to throw out the votes of millions of Americans in this year’s presidential election should be sanctioned.

A censure? Impeachment? A public scolding?

They signed a legal brief that joined a suit filed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton who said the votes in four states that went for Joe Biden were cast illegally. He said the states changed their election rules in violation of the Constitution.

Paxton, a Republican (of course!) got 16 other state attorneys general to join the suit. Then came the brief signed by the members of Congress. Twelve of them are from Texas.

Congressional Democrats quite naturally are outraged that these individuals would seek to subvert the Constitution. That they would seek to undermine the electoral process. That they would deliberately and with malice seek to violate their oaths of office.

The Supreme Court threw out Paxton’s lawsuit. It was silent on the action of the members of Congress who agreed with the embattled AG’s complaint. I understand SCOTUS’s silence on that matter.

However, many of us out here in Flyover Country won’t remain silent. I certainly won’t.

These individuals — including the House’s top two leading GOP members, minority leader Kevin McCarthy and minority whip Steve Scalise — have richly earned whatever sanction that is available to the congressional leadership that can punish them.

They no longer represent the Republican Party. They are now members of the Donald Trump Party, even though they took an oath to defend the nation … not suck up to a president.

They sicken me.

national news

How will Trump react to the next nail in his political coffin?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

One of the zillions of things I won’t miss when Donald Trump is no longer president is awaiting his reaction to matters involving his political future.

Example: The Electoral College is voting Monday on who will become the next president. Spoiler alert: It won’t be Donald Trump.

No, the Electoral College — as prescribed by the U.S. Constitution — will cast its pledged votes for President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr., who won the presidency on Nov. 3. Biden has rolled up a 7-million vote margin over Trump, winning 306 electoral votes.

The Electoral College, which comprises delegates from all the states, will certify the election Monday.

What does Trump do? How will he react when the Electoral College certifies what everyone on Planet Earth knows what occurred? That remains to be seen and heard. Trump has mounted more than 50 legal challenges. He has lost all but one of them. The latest defeat came when the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear a lawsuit brought by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who sought to get the votes of four states overthrown.

Trump keeps tweeting that he’ll continue fighting to keep his job. He continues to insist the election was “rigged.” He produces no evidence of the scurrilous allegation.

The Electoral College certification would appear to be the final scene in the final act of this ghastly drama. Oh, how I hope that’s the case. However, we are dealing with a lunatic in the body of the man who has lost a presidential election.

Let us stay tuned.

legal news

GOP favors ‘judicial activism’?

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

There once was a time in this country when Republicans berated progressives/liberals for favoring what they referred to derisively  as “judicial activism.”

The GOP hated the notion of the courts rewriting laws, or “legislating from the bench.” Well, what in the name of juris prudence have we seen now in the wake of a U.S. Supreme Court dismissal of a lawsuit brought to it by the Texas attorney general? We’re seeing and hearing Republicans blasting the court for, um, following the Constitution.

What the hell?

Texas AG Ken Paxton wanted the SCOTUS to order millions of votes cast in states that supported Joe Biden’s election as president tossed out. He was joined by 16 GOP state attorneys general; then we had more than 120 GOP members of Congress sign on to Paxton’s lunacy. They all wanted the high court to — yep, that’s right — take a judicially activist stance.

Up is now down. Right is wrong. Left is right and vice versa. Nothing makes sense. Not a damn thing!

This madness is being orchestrated by Donald Trump, the so-called Republican president who is masterminding this revolt against the democratic process. He lost an election and won’t accept the will of the American voters.

Traditional Republican politicians, if there are any of them left in public office, should be aghast, appalled and astounded at what has become of traditional Republican policy.

State news

What if a pardon comes and he accepts it?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Let’s a play that old game of “What If … ”

What if Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is looking for a presidential pardon, which was his reason for filing a hopelessly stupid lawsuit in the U.S. Supreme Court.

Paxton sought to persuade the court to require that four states that voted for Joe Biden for president toss their votes and give the majority to Donald Trump. SCOTUS said “no” to the lawsuit. The justices tossed it into the crapper. They dismissed Paxton’s complaint that alleged the states changed their election laws in violation of the Constitution.

What if a pardon comes. Trump pardons Paxton for any federal crimes he might have committed. Indeed, the FBI is examining complaints filed by whistleblowers who worked in Paxton’s office; the individuals were fired or resigned in protest.

What if Paxton accepts the pardon. Isn’t that a de fact admission of guilt? Does that mean the state’s top legal authority has committed crimes worthy of a presidential pardon?

And does that mean we have an acknowledged criminal serving as the elected attorney general, the individual who represents Texas’s legal interests?

What if he accepts the pardon. Where I come from, that means the Texas attorney general should resign from office.

Am I off base?

national news

Legal wrangling produces a benefit for ordinary folks

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

All this wrangling about an election that took place freely, fairly and securely has produced at least one positive benefit for those of us sitting out here in the Peanut Gallery.

It has awakened our awareness of what the U.S. Constitution says about elections and about how strong and sturdy the nation’s governmental document framework remains.

Ken Paxton concocted a phony argument that went straight to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Texas attorney general, who’s turned our state into an international laughingstock, challenged the presidential election results in four states; none of them was Texas. The states all voted favorably for President-elect Joe Biden. The nation’s high court tossed Paxton’s lawsuit without argument.

What we learned is that the Constitution is crystal clear about national elections. It is that states retain the sole authority to conduct they way they elect presidents. Attorneys general, such as Paxton, cannot intrude on those states’ business.

Yes, I knew all of that intellectually. What is gratifying as a political junkie, though, is that the SCOTUS decision drags this issue into the glaring spotlight of international attention. We also have been exposed to the rank hypocrisy of politicians who, under previously “normal” circumstances, would stand foursquare behind Article II of the Constitution, which grants this electoral power to the states.

These aren’t normal times. The Republican Party has become the Donald Trump Party and is beholden — ironically, I should add — to someone who doesn’t give a sh** about anyone other than himself.

As we watch this needless, senseless, feckless and reckless drama play out, I am heartened by the knowledge we are gaining about the government our founders created. They didn’t create a perfect system for us to follow. Then again, they only sought to create a “more perfect Union.”

It has been made a good bit more perfect as this spectacle staggers toward its conclusion … which will occur on Jan. 20 the moment President Biden takes his hand off the Bible.

legal news

Lunacy continues

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Oh, my … it appears that political lunacy is a bottomless well.

There must be no end to it.

The U.S. Supreme Court has tossed aside a stupid lawsuit brought by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to overturn election results in four states. Donald Trump keeps yammering about rampant and widespread voter fraud. The court said he hasn’t made the case and that Paxton lacks the standing to challenge other states’ electoral process.

That’s the end of it, right? Not even.

Trump now is considering the appointment of a special counsel to examine the baseless allegations he has leveled. He also wants to look into Hunter Biden’s finances; yes, the son of the president-elect who defeated Trump this past month in the presidential election.

Lunacy, man. Lunacy!

Trump appears ready to take this fight all the way to Inauguration Day. Maybe even past it. Donald Trump might go for as long as he walks among us.

Yes, the nation elected a lunatic as its president in 2016. It decided it had enough of his idiocy and tossed him out in favor of President-elect Biden.

He ain’t going quietly. He is showing himself to be the lunatic many of us realized we were getting four years ago.

legal news

SCOTUS delivers the KO

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I am worn out, bushed, whipped, exhausted by all this legal wrangling, which means I am delighted beyond belief that the U.S. Supreme Court has put an end to Donald Trump’s challenge of a free and fair presidential election.

Oh, wait. I should mention that Trump lost that election. President-elect Joe Biden will take office in about 39 days.

SCOTUS rejected a specious lawsuit brought by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton that sought to get four states to throw out their election returns that went favorably toward Biden. The high court, in a brief summary statement, said that Texas could not interfere in other states’ electoral process.

Ba da boom!

More to the point, the court ruling stated  that Texas lacked standing to pursue the case, saying it “has not demonstrated a judicially cognizable interest in the manner in which another state conducts its elections.”

This is the end of the road for Donald Trump, for his Trumpkin toadies, his cult of personality followers.

The lesson once again comes in the form of the strongly conservative court ruling with dispassionate analysis what almost every legal scholar in the land had predicted it would rule.

My advice now for Donald Trump: Shut the hell up about an election you lost; accept the results … and go away.

national news

Time makes Person of Year pick … sigh

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I’ll be candid: Time magazine’s selection for Person of the Year is not the choice I wanted the venerable publication to make.

It’s not that I object strenuously with Time naming President-elect Biden and Vice President-elect Harris as its Person of the Year. It is that I wanted the mag to honor an entire category of human beings: those on the front lines in the fight against the coronavirus … namely the first responders, health care workers, educators. Those folks are society’s heroes and they earned the honor of Person of the Year.

But that’s just me, I suppose.

As for the president- and vice president-elect, they indeed made history. They defeated the most corrupt, amoral, venal and disgraceful presidential administration in U.S. history. They did so convincingly. Joe Biden deserves kudos for making history by selecting Kamala Harris, the first black and first candidate of South Asian descent to run with him as vice president.

They both acquitted themselves well on the campaign trail. They have rolled up 81 million votes en route to a solid Electoral College majority. Biden and Harris are assembling a first-class team with which to govern.

In some ways, the Time choice is the politically safe choice. Winning presidents (and this case winning VPs) often get the Person of the Year nod.

However, the pandemic is the overwhelming story of 2020. The chief element of that story, in my view, has been the heroism displayed in hospital emergency rooms, ICU rooms and the bedsides of COVID-19 patients; moreover, there have been heroes abounding in our classrooms as educators seek to teach our children amid the threat of exposure to a potentially deadly virus.

And this heroism is a worldwide phenomenon.

So, I’ll accept Time’s choice simply as the editors’ call. It’s not one I would have made but it’s their magazine, their decision.

Just to be clear — one more time: I am delighted that we’re about to welcome Joe Biden and Kamala Harris as our new president and vice president.

national news

106 House GOP members form an infamous cabal

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

One hundred six members of the U.S. House of Representatives have formed a cabal that has joined what has been called an act of sedition against the U.S. government.

They signed on to a lawsuit brought by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to overturn the electoral results in four states that endorsed President-elect Joe Biden’s bid to become president.

Yes, roughly half of the GOP House caucus has signed on to a plan to undercut the democratic process. They want to throw out the votes of millions of Americans. They want those states’ electors to vote for Donald Trump and not Joe Biden, even though the president-elect earned more votes than Trump in the 2020 presidential election.

They are shameful seditionists who should be defeated when they stand for re-election in 2022.

legal news

Good news and better news

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

There might be some good news and even better news to come from the U.S. Supreme Court.

The good news would be that the court will declare that a profoundly stupid and senseless lawsuit will not get a hearing; that the court will dismiss it summarily.

The lawsuit comes from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, the state’s indicted top lawyer, who is suing to have the presidential vote results in Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania tossed out because, Paxton alleges, they were cast illegally. Seventeen state attorneys general — all Republicans (imagine that) — have joined Paxton’s idiotic legal maneuver.

The better news would be that all nine justices lock arms and declare in a stern rebuke of Donald Trump’s attempt to undermine, subvert and destroy the democratic electoral process. Chief Justice John Roberts can issue the order to fire off the rhetorical barrage. My hope is that the chief does so.

Donald John Trump needs to be exposed as the fraud that he is and the nation’s highest court can lend its voice to that important message by telling us why it is tossing his baseless, phony complaint about “widespread voter fraud” into the trash can … where it belongs!