Tag Archives: Donald Trump

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

Lack of ‘courage’? Really?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Donald J. Trump blasted the U.S. Supreme Court overnight for striking down that idiotic lawsuit filed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. Trump said the court lacked “courage” and “wisdom” in declining to hear the suit that sought to overturn the election results in four states that voted for Joe Biden.

Hmm. Wow! 

I shall insist that the real courage was shown by three justices in particular, all of whom voted with the majority in refusing to hear the case. Those justices are Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.

What do they have in common? They were nominated by Donald Trump to join the nation’s highest court and now are facing the wrath of their political benefactor.

They weren’t my preferred picks to join the court. In this case, they stood tall … and courageously.

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!

national news

Pressure builds on Constitution strength

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I am on record as stating my belief in the strength and resilience of the U.S. Constitution.

It has withstood crises. We have argued over the impeachment of presidents. The Constitution stood firm against the pressure. We fought a Civil War. The Constitution survived the nation’s bloodiest conflict.

It is being tested again arguably in a manner no one likely could have foreseen. A president has lost an election. Rather than accept Joe the defeat, he has challenged its veracity. Donald Trump has filed dozens of court challenges. He has lost every one of them.

Now he has a Texas attorney general — Ken Paxton — who has filed a challenge to our election. Paxton, who is under indictment for securities fraud and under investigation by the FBI on an assortment of unrelated allegations, argues that four states  that voted for Joe Biden must have their vote totals overturned.

Paxton went to the U.S. Supreme Court. My own sense is that the court will reject Paxton’s moronic argument summarily. I hope it is soon. The Electoral College will meet to certify what all 50 states have done already, that Joe Biden was elected president. Then Congress will meet early next month to do the same thing: declare Joe Biden to be the next president.

The Constitution will work. I have faith in the durability and strength of the document. However, it is going to suffer serious damage by the idiotic challenges that Donald Trump is mounting.

Trump is pressuring state GOP election officials to overturn their states’ results. A man with no understanding or appreciation of our democratic system of government is committing what some have called an act of sedition against the Constitution. Think of that for just a moment. The nation elected this lunatic as our president in 2016? My goodness!

A nation that is grieving the loss of hundreds of thousands of its citizens to a killer virus is being stiffed by a president who is fixated on reversing an election he lost. Donald Trump is disgracefully derelict in his duty to protect us. He violates his oath damn near daily, if not hourly.

However, through all of this I remain convinced as certainly as I am typing these words that the U.S. Constitution will guide us through this morass. The pressure is mounting. The document, though, is strong enough to withstand it.

Uncategorized

Oh, the post-Trump era awaits

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I am staring straight into the face of a serious quandary.

What in the word am I going to do when Donald Trump exits the political stage on Jan. 20?

He’ll actually be out of the White House before then — more than likely. Trump won’t have the good manners or sense of decorum to attend President Biden’s inaugural. He’ll be sitting somewhere off-site, no doubt with his Twitter fingers itching to say something, anything derogatory about the new president.

That is going to leave bloggers and other commentators such as me without the grist on which we have relied since the day Donald and Melania Trump rode down the escalator at Trump Tower to announce that The Donald was running for president.

Good gawd, it’s been a hideous period since then. However, it has given High Plains Blogger plenty of material on which to comment.

Now comes President Biden. Boring ol’ Joe. He’s such a regular guy. He’s a product of public service, having served in the public eye since before he was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1972.

Joe Biden stands in stark contrast to the background that Donald Trump brought to the only public office he ever sought. Biden wants to serve the public. He puts others’ interests ahead of his own. He knows about “regular order” in the Senate and plans to insist on it as president.

Biden won’t be firing angry Twitter messages at all hours of the day and night. He likely won’t fire Cabinet members who displease him simply by contradicting some wild statements he might make.

Folks, we are re-entering a time of political norms that have been plowed asunder by the ghastly whims of Donald Trump.

What to do? I pledge to look at policy pronouncements that come from the president, or from his senior Cabinet leaders, or from Republicans and Democrats in Congress who will serve with Joe Biden as partners in the complex federal government.

I will seek to resist the temptation to blast those who make preposterous statements … although I cannot possibly make an ironclad promise to never speak ill of them.

As for the 45th president. He becomes irrelevant in my eyes on Jan. 20 … if not sooner!

legal news

D’oh! It’s about a pardon?

2 Comments

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I am just slapping myself upside my own noggin.

Two blog posts have commented on Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s goofy lawsuit that seeks to overturn the presidential election results in four states that President-elect Joe Biden won over Donald Trump: Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.

Now comes the chatter over the GOP Texas AG’s lawsuit. The dipsh** is angling for a pardon from Trump.

D’oh! Why didn’t I snap to that conclusion.

The FBI is investigating Paxton on allegations leveled by former top legal aides in the Texas AG’s office. They contend that Paxton broke the law by dishing out favors for a key political crony/ally/contributor. In come the feds to look more closely at the allegations. Trump, of course, has the power to grant a full pardon for any federal crime or suspicion of a federal crime.

That might explain why Paxton is launching this idiotic legal challenge. I have yet to see a serious legal or constitutional scholar suggest that the challenge Paxton is mounting has an ounce of legal merit. They have labeled it everything from a fishing expedition to a publicity stunt.

There well might be a pardon in the Texas attorney general’s future if Donald Trump gives a damn about what Ken Paxton is trying to do.

Reprehensible!

legal news, political news, State news

Paxton seeks to bask in some perverse glory

2 Comments

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I have concluded, based on zero hard data and only on my inherent bias that I admit to freely, that Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is hellbent on making a spectacle of himself.

He seeks to bask in some sort of perverse glory derived from Donald Trump’s idiotic pursuit of “widespread voter fraud” where none exists. Thus, Paxton has filed a lawsuit with the U.S. Supreme Court that seeks to overturn the free and fair election results in four states that cast most of their votes for President-elect Joe Biden in the just completed presidential election.

Paxton’s alleged “logic” is beyond belief.

He says the four states — Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Georgia — changed their voting rules in an unconstitutional fashion by allowing more voters to cast their ballots using the U.S. Postal Service. He wants the high court, therefore, to toss out those states’ election returns.

To its credit, the SCOTUS — with three justices nominated by Donald Trump already aboard — has declared already that another lawsuit brought by a Pennsylvania GOP member of Congress has no merit; it has tossed it aside with a single-sentence ruling.

So what the hell is Paxton trying to do here? I mean, the dude already is in trouble already. He is awaiting trial in Texas courts for securities fraud allegations. He also is being investigated by the FBI for allegedly doing favors illegally for a campaign donor. Seven key legal aides have quit or been fired by the AG after they blew the whistle on what they allege is illegal conduct.

The word on Paxton is that he was a mediocre lawyer prior to his election to the Texas Legislature, where he didn’t distinguish himself as the author of much key legislation. Then he got elected Texas AG in 2014 and was almost immediately showered with suspicion when a Collin County grand jury indicted him for securities fraud.

Now this? The AG must have a screw loose.

Let me be as clear as possible: Joe Biden won the election; there is no evidence of the kind of “widespread” fraud that Trump and his Trumpster Team allege. Even the U.S. attorney general, William Barr, has reached that conclusion.

Ken Paxton needs to stop meddling in other states’ affairs.