Tag Archives: Electoral College

national news, political news

Hey, it wasn’t a blowout!

Time for an admission from yours truly. I have been misrepresenting the nature of Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election.

So, today I am going to offer a mea culpa and set the record straight. It’s important to set the table for the probable rematch between President Biden and the fool he defeated four years ago.

Biden captured 306 electoral votes in 2020; he needed 270 of them to win. I took a quick look at the results from four key states that will be contested heavily this time around.

Arizona, Georgia, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania all voted for Joe Biden in 2020. Biden’s margin of victory in all four states was around 123,000 votes … total!

Had his opponent flipped 64,000 or so votes in those four states in 2020, he would have captured the 65 electoral votes that went to President Biden, who would have finished with 241 electoral votes, with 297 of them going to the former Idiot in Chief.

Imagine, too, that even with Biden’s 7 million popular vote cushion, he still would have lost to The Former Guy.

This is worth mentioning because the stakes in 2024 are even more grim than they were in 2020. The one-time Moron in Chief has vowed to be his supporters’ “retribution.” He has actually pledged to sic the Department of Justice on his foes … and to think he and his MAGA cult followers have accused President Biden of “weaponizing” the DOJ.

This idiot has yet to concede that he actually lost the 2020 election and vows to assume dictatorial powers “if only for a day” if he darkens the Oval Office door yet again.

Americans must not let this guy anywhere near the center of power ever again. Not … ever!

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Way ahead of the curve …

Rarely can I boast about being ahead of the curve on political trends, as I mostly am wrong far more than I am correct.

As it involves the 45th president and his unfitness to hold — let alone run for — public office, well, I take a back seat to no one on that matter.

I made such a declaration long before he and his wife rode down the escalator in the office tower that bears his name. I noted that the future POTUS had zero public service experience, that his entire professional life was geared only toward self-enrichment. I argued vehemently on this blog that American voters must never let him near the Oval Office.

Well, as with most things, the voters didn’t heed my warning. He got elected in an Electoral College fluke, losing the popular vote by more than 3 million ballots, but being elected by pilfering key states and being awarded their electoral votes.

I truly wanted him to succeed. It couldn’t happen, though, because of that damn lack of public service background thing.

I said “I told you so” a time or three during his term in office. But again, the MAGA followers who happen to read High Plains Blogger were dismissive. I need to get over myself, some of ’em said.

Eight years later, the former POTUS is at it again. Only this time he has lost more than a step in speaking to the critical issues of the day.

He recently confused fellow GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley with Hillary Clinton, prompting Haley to declare — for the first time and way later than I ever did — that the GOP frontrunner is “unfit for public office.”

Well, no sh** Sherlock!

These missteps are going to chip away where his previous insults, gaffes and hideous pronouncements couldn’t.

Hold your applause if you’re so inclined to congratulate me. Hey, I was just stating the obvious. If only those MAGA followers would follow suit.

national news

Must stay on top of ex-POTUS

If only I could rid myself of having to say another word about the machinations of the 45th president of the United States.

Except that I cannot. Not while he remains at or near the top of the Republican Party presidential nomination hunt in 2024.

If only he’d go the hell away. He won’t. He lusts for attention and, boy howdy, he’s getting it now as the twice-indicted (for now!), twice-impeached ex-POTUS.

I am confident in predicting that there appear to be at least two more indictments coming his way. Fulton County, Ga., District Attorney Fani Willis is sending up signals that an indictment is imminent. All the ex-POTUS did there was demand that the Georgia secretary of state “find” enough votes to give the loser the state’s Electoral College tally.

The other indictment also appears set to come from the feds — again! — as special counsel Jack Smith continues his work on the ex-POTUS’s role in inciting the 1/6 assault on the government as Congress was preparing to ratify the Electoral College victory rolled up by Joe Biden in 2020.

All of this, I am saddened to say, puts bloggers and assorted commentators such as yours truly in an awkward place. We have to keep commenting on these goings-on. To be sure, I am not going to weigh in — per an earlier pledge — on every single campaign utterance that flies out of the crook’s pie hole.

I won’t apologize for believing I must comment on the issues surrounding this horribly unfit, immoral and disgraceful politician. I simply must explain myself and recognize three facts that are beyond dispute.

First, he is a former president of the United States. Second, he is the first POTUS ever indicted by the very government he once led. Third, those two facts make it impossible for me to ignore what’s happening — or what is about to happen — to a guy who ought to spend the rest of his miserable life in prison.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

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Hillary is right about Trump

Say whatever you want about Hillary Rodham Clinton, who grabbed defeat from the jaws of victory in the 2016 presidential election … but she is correct in asserting that the man who defeated her then is a criminal.

Donald Trump, said 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Clinton, has committed an act of “seditious conspiracy” against the federal government. She is convinced of the evidence that has been gathered and she wants him prosecuted.

So do I and so do millions of other Americans.

Clinton told CBS News what many of us already know, that she was unhappy that she collected 3 million more votes than Trump but lost the Electoral College vote, which is the count that matters in electing presidents.

“Did I consider for a nanosecond” an effort to overturn the results of that election? Clinton asked. “No!” she answered with stunning emphasis.

Clinton lost the 2016 election in one of the most bizarre political flukes in U.S. history. Trump pilfered states that by all rights should have ended up in Clinton’s column. She lost them and I, for one, am not going to dispute that Trump was elected president in 2016. Thus, he benefited from a peaceful power transition that he denied the man to whom he lost four years later.

And in denying that peaceful transition to an opponent, Joe Biden, who defeated him decisively, Trump committed a criminal act of “seditious conspiracy.”

The record is now chock full of evidence presented to a select House committee. Just think: this is just one of at least three probes into criminal activity involving the twice-impeached former president of the United States of America.

The beat, as they say, just goes on.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Twice elected? He’s out!

This thought didn’t come from me, but I want to share it anyway … because it’s too damn funny to ignore.

Donald Trump won election to the presidency in 2016 by securing more Electoral College votes than Hillary Clinton. It was legal and constitutional.

Trump says he was re-elected in a landslide four years later. Of course, he wasn’t. He lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden, who pulled in 7 million more ballots than Trump and won with an Electoral College majority that virtually mirrored Trump’s win four years earlier.

But …

If Trump is right — which he isn’t! — that he won re-election in 2020, how can the former Dipsh** in Chief, with a straight face, purport to consider running for POTUS in 2024? The Constitution allows two terms. That’s it!

Hit the fu**ing road, Donald!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

DA gets new grand jury … yes!

Fani Willis is emerging as potentially my newest political hero. She is the Fulton County (Ga.) district attorney who sought — and then received — permission to seat a special grand jury that is going to examine whether Donald J. Trump interfered with the 2020 presidential election.

Hmm. Let’s see. What do we have here?

We have a recorded conversation featuring Trump telling Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger to “find” 11,780 votes that can be credited to the ex-POTUS and possibly keep him in power. Oh, Joe Biden won Georgia’s electoral votes, but Trump harangued the chief elections officer in Georgia to find enough votes to swing it to Trump’s list of winning states.

Where I come from, that sounds for all the world like intimidation. You see, Trump told Raffensberger — a Republican who voted for Trump — to break the law. To his great credit, Raffensberger said no can do, Mr. President. Trump then threatened Raffensberger with prosecution if he didn’t comply with the Insurrectionist in Chief’s demand.

It’s all recorded, man. Raffensberger had the good sense to memorialize it for posterity. Is it legal for Trump to badger a state elections official in that manner? Is it moral? Does it make sense for Trump to, in effect, hand a prosecuting attorney — in this case, DA Willis — the proverbial smoking gun in a criminal investigation?

Willis sought the special grand jury that is going to look exclusively at the allegation of election interference. It didn’t take the state court system long to decide that a special panel is necessary to get to the truth behind Donald Trump’s effort to rig an election he said is … um, rigged.

I believe the prosecutor is onto something huge.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

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This one is mind-blowing

Of all the revelations reported about the investigation into 1/6 and the circumstances that preceded the insurrection on that horrible day, none is more bizarre — to my way of thinking — than the report of fake electors being summoned to cast votes for the guy who lost the 2020 presidential election.

You know how it goes, right?

States that Joseph R. Biden won were being targeted by electors pledged to Donald J. Trump. They were being instructed to show up to cast their electoral votes for Trump. Yep, they would actually seek to reverse the results of a free and fair election and rig the result to suit the wishes of the guy who lost.

To think that Donald Trump is insisting that the results of the election were rigged against him. Good grief. He sought to actually rig the election in reverse!

So, the investigation into 1/6 proceeds.

The House select committee that is charged with finding the truth behind what happened is zeroing in on the principals involved in this elaborate plot to in effect stage a coup against the federal government.

They are issuing summons and making requests of people close to Trump to talk to committee members.

As I look at all these revelations, I sense a mountain of evidence building against former president of the United States. He clearly is an individual who would flout whatever law he could to keep a grip on power. Donald Trump’s lawlessness is unprecedented in an individual who took a sacred oath to uphold the law and defend the Constitution.

And still …

There are the cultists who insist the most recent presidential election is fraudulent; that their guy will be reinstated before the sun goes down; that they are the true “patriots”; that all the evidence we can see developing in real time is the result of “fake news.”

They conduct phony “audits” of statewide election returns and learn that Biden won by a handful more votes than originally reported.

They promote The Big Lie and their cultists believe it.

As for the phony electoral vote strategy that has been rooted out by the sleuths, I have to say it’s a doozy.

It also frightens the sh** out of me.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news, national news, political news

A silver lining in the vote fraud scam?

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I want to make a declaration I never thought I could make, as it involves the 45th president of the United States, aka the ex-Moron in Chief.

All this scandalous nonsense about the security of the 2020 presidential election is going to produce future election cycles that no one is likely to be able to challenge at any level.

I credit the 45th POTUS for the security we will witness in real time of future elections: for president, for Congress, for state legislatures, for countywide office, for municipal and school district office.

Our attention has been riveted on the issue of election security. Granted, I do not buy for one second the veracity of the allegations that the 45th POTUS has leveled at the 2020 presidential election. I do, though, buy into the notion that our state and county elections officials’ alert levels have risen to unprecedented levels.

The future of our electoral system, I submit without reservation, actually looks brighter because we have spent so much time in this post-election period discussing the issue of ballot security.

I cannot begin to predict that there won’t be some crackpot in the future who will raise the noxious stink that POTUS 45 has raised since losing the 2020 election. He lost it bigly: 7 million ballots and a 306-232 tally in the Electoral College. He keeps yammering about vote fraud, but produces not a shred of evidence to substantiate his slanderous attacks on the electoral process.

There has been a positive result, though. I am quite certain the ex-Numbskull in Chief has elevated electoral security awareness all along the political chain of command. I have known many county clerks in Texas and Oregon who have worked themselves to near-collapse seeking to protect the integrity of the voting process. They have done their jobs well and with honor. Thus, they do not deserve to be slandered in the manner they have suffered from the mouth of POTUS 45.

They will no doubt redouble their efforts in the future.

I am certain our electoral process will remain secure, safe and legal.

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Elections have consequences!

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

If I hear it one more time my head is likely to explode.

It is that Donald Trump’s supporters’ mantra that their guy pulled in 74.2 million votes in the 2020 presidential election, which means — by God — that they won’t be silenced.

OK. I got it. Here is another truth about that election: President Biden garnered 81.2 million votes, 7 million more than Trump; moreover, he won the Electoral College with 306 votes, needing 270 to win the presidency.

Biden won. Trump lost. Elections, as the saying goes, have consequences!

A democratic society requires that losing candidates accept defeat, congratulate the winner, pledge to work together … and yes, also keep pushing for whatever agenda he or she sought during a losing campaign. Donald Trump didn’t do that. He hasn’t done that yet. He apparently will never do any of it.

Instead, he is leading his minions on some sort of call of defiance, ginning up their enthusiasm for a campaign that did not resonate with most Americans who voted in record numbers.

I know what some of you might be thinking. What about the 2016 election when supporters of Hillary Clinton yapped about their candidate getting more votes than Trump? There is no parallel. Clinton pulled in about 3 million more votes than Trump, but lost the Electoral College by the same amount that Trump lost to Biden. There were those who said their voices needed to be heard. Why? Because their candidate collected more rank-and-file support than the actual winner. I was not one of those individuals.

Yes, I was highly critical of Donald Trump during his term as president, but I also recognized that the Constitution prescribes a certain way that candidates win presidential elections, and in 2016 Trump met that standard.

The 2020 result was clear cut. The actual vote comported with the Electoral College vote. So, when the Trumpkin Corps yaps about their guy winning 74.2 million votes, I am left to shrug and say: So fu**ing what? 

The other guy got more votes than your guy! Your guy lost. The Trumpkins have every right to express their point of view; the Constitution is clear about that. But … do not rely on the tired mantra that just because the losing candidate for president won a lot of votes that it means he can still have his way.

Donald Trump said it himself after hearing the gripes of those who supported his opponent four years ago: Elections have consequences.

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By all means, Sen. Cruz … resign!

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

An editor of mine used to say that “when one person calls you an ass, you blow it off; when many of them say so, then you need to start shopping for a feedbag.”

A lot of Americans these days are calling for the resignations of U.S. Sens. Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley. Why? Because they led the Senate’s effort to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. They both will couch their intentions behind merely seeking to “ensure the integrity” of the electoral process.

That is a pile of steaming bullsh**. They intended to somehow restore Donald Trump’s political fortunes and return him for a second term as president. Never mind that a majority of Americans endorsed Joe Biden as the next president or that the elections in each of our 50 states and the District of Columbia were conducted under the tightest security in history.

Yeah, these two clowns need to quit. They won’t go anywhere. At least not until someone finds something incriminating about them and can prove it … which is more than Cruz, Hawley and the other vote fraud conspiracy theorists were able to do with their phony allegations of “widespread” corruption of the electoral process.

Both of these nimrods won’t stand for re-election until 2024. They both have earned censure in the Senate, as do  the House members who joined them in that moronic effort to subvert our democratic process. Cruz, the Texas Republican, and Hawley, the GOP’er from Missouri, need to be stripped of their committee assignments and sent to the back of the Senate chamber.

Will any of that happen? Oh, probably not. However, enough Americans are calling them asses for what they tried to pull off that they surely have earned the scorn they are receiving.