Tag Archives: impeachment

No impeachment … OK?

Joe Biden doesn’t deserve to be impeached by the U.S. House of Representatives. If you don’t believe me, then you ought to heed the warnings of some prominent congressional conservatives.

The president is being targeted by the MAGA caucus of the House for unspecified “high crimes and misdemeanors.” What they are must be anyone’s guess.

But, by golly, the MAGA morons are proceeding with an impeachment inquiry, come hell or high water. One of them happens to be my North Texas congressman, freshman Keith Self of McKinney. Good grief, dude. Get a fu**ing grip!

Many conservatives, though, say that impeachment is a non-starter. They include Sens. Mitt Romney of Utah, Jerry Moran of Kansas, Mike Lee of Utah, and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

We all know what is driving this idiotic endeavor. It’s revenge against House Democrats who spearheaded two impeachments against a Republican who served as POTUS. That’s it!

Do we have a crime? Is there anything President Biden has done to deserve impeachment? Not … a … damn … thing!

A trial for the ages?

Let’s not pussyfoot around the obvious, which is that any of the four trials awaiting Donald J. Trump can be categorized as the “most significant legal proceeding in U.S. history.”

Every one of them will make history. They will become trials for the ages. They likely will be included in the first line of the obituary written for the individual who will stand trial.

Donald J. Trump is the first former president of the United States to be indicted for allegedly committing felony crimes against the government he swore an oath to defend and protect.

He is presumed to be innocent until proven guilty. My sense, though, is that state and federal prosecutors have done their jobs well enough to secure convictions perhaps on all the charges leveled against Trump. How many of them are there? Ninety-one!

Did any of us ever imagine seeing a former POTUS stand trial for seeking to overturn an election and obstructing the peaceful transfer of power after he lost that election? I damn sure never imagined it.

The trials that have been set constitute the most meaningful court proceedings this country ever has witnessed. We cannot possibly overstate what they will mean to the future of our democratic republic.

Trump is a sure-fire loser!

All this media hype and hand-wringing over Donald J. Trump’s apparent skate toward the 2024 Republican Party presidential nomination has me on the brink of screaming at the top of my lungs.

I’ll refrain from that, but I will declare here — once again! — that Donald Trump will never enter the Oval Office again.

Let me say it another way. He will not be elected POTUS!

OK. I have said this before about this clown. He proved me, and millions of other prognosticators wrong in 2016 when he slipped past the conventional wisdom and squeaked out an Electoral College victory.

He then proceeded to embarrass himself, the country and endangered the lives of millions of Americans through his negligence in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic.

He was impeached twice. He has been indicted by two grand juries and a third indictment is coming up damn soon. There will be others in store.

I am going to place a great deal of faith in the American electorate that rank-and-file Americans are not so stupid that they would actually send this guy back for another turn as head of state and commander in chief.

This individual is profoundly dangerous.

You may stop laughing at me at any moment. Yes, he defied every oddsmaker once already. However, I want to dredge up the saying that President George W. Bush once famously flubbed: Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.

Are we really, seriously ready to send this soon-to-be-convicted felon back to power?

I think not!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Trump Fatigue sets in

You may choose to believe or disbelieve what I am about to say, but it’s true … which is that I am getting weary of all things Donald John Trump.

Yes! I want this to end! I want to stop thinking about what this idiot might do next to call attention to himself. I want to get on with serious policy discussions about serious policy differences between serious political leaders.

Trump offers nothing serious or sober to any of this. He offers only drama, chaos, narcissism, threats against democracy.

He is in the middle of multiple legal battles, none of which is likely to end well for him. If he’s convicted, say, of violating the Espionage Act in hiding those documents at his joint in Florida, he’ll fight the prison sentence that awaits him.

People such as me will comment on it, as we must. I don’t want to do it, but I will.

Just to be crystal clear: I do not believe Donald Trump will be elected POTUS. I remain dubious as to whether he will remain in the campaign for the White House.

He will remain on center stage, though, as an ex-POTUS and rabble rouser extraordinaire.

I just want him to vanish. Forever.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Hoping they’ve had enough

My eternal optimism often gets tested by Texas politicians, so many of whom are motivated by forces with which I disagree vehemently.

But … it is getting a push in the right direction with the impeachment of Attorney General Ken Paxton and his pending trial in the Senate on allegations that he is as crooked as a dog’s hind leg.

Senators will convene a trial no later than Aug. 28. They’re going to hear a chorus of allegations leveled against the AG: that he took a bribe to help a campaign donor, that he cheated on his wife (one of the senators who might get to decide his guilt or innocence), that he fired whistleblowers for making complaints about his behavior.

The House General Investigating Committee referred the impeachment in the House. It was a unanimous vote. The House impeached the Republican AG by an overwhelming vote of 121-25. House members showed considerable backbone in condemning the AG.

Oh, and then we hear about political threats he made to House Republicans if they voted to impeach him.

And why? My hope — if not yet my sense — is that Republicans are fed up to here with the constant drumbeat of allegations of misbehavior by the state’s top law enforcement officer.

It seems to me that whenever Paxton’s name shows up in the news it has something to do with someone complaining about the manner in which he is doing his job.

We need an attorney general who can make news simply by performing the tasks of his office.

Thus, I will hope that Texas senators can borrow from the spunk shown by the House colleagues. My eternal optimism needs a kick.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Stay quiet, senators

Should the 31 men and women who comprise the Texas Senate reveal to the public how they intend to vote on whether to convict the state’s attorney general of crimes he allegedly committed?

With emphasis, I want to say “no!”

AG Ken Paxton is set to stand trial no later than Aug. 28 on 20 articles of impeachment that the Texas House zoomed through in the final days of the 2023 Legislature.

As the Texas Tribune reports, we can expect a “much different rhythm” in the Legislature’s other chamber.

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick leads the Senate and he’s keeping his own thoughts on Paxton’s guilt or innocence to himself, as he should.

“Don’t ask me any more questions because I can’t answer them,” Patrick said during an event with the Texas Public Policy Foundation. “Look at me like a judge before a case and look at our senators like that. Be respectful of their space and time. This is very serious. There are very serious people, and the Senate is going to do our job in a professional way.”

Ken Paxton impeachment moves to Texas Senate, where unknowns await | The Texas Tribune

There you go. The Senate is acting as a jury. The Legislature has hired two legal hot shots — Dick DeGuerin and Rusty Hardin — to lead the prosecution.

I want there to be some suspense prior to the convening of the trial. For senators to blab and blather on their predisposition before they deliver a verdict would be prejudicial and would signal that the fix is in — either way — in what Patrick as described as a “very serious” proceeding.

Let the process move forward.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Step up, GOP lawmakers!

A nagging fear keeps rolling around my noggin concerning today’s expected impeachment vote involving Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.

It is that Texas Republican legislators are as cowardly as their national colleagues. That is, they won’t vote to impeach a disgraceful “chief law enforcement officer” who’s been dogged by scandal almost from the day he took office in 2015.

National GOP members of Congress lacked the guts to impeach Donald J. Trump. I fear that same cowardice has afflicted the state’s GOP legislative caucus.

There are signs of hope. Such as the House General Investigations Committee’s unanimous vote to recommend impeachment. The panel, comprising three Republicans and two Democrats, stepped up and did the right thing to call for Paxton’s ouster after hearing from whistleblowers alleging widespread corruption within the AG’s office.

Will their House colleagues follow suit and provide the majority needed to force this guy to step aside while awaiting a trial in the Texas Senate?

Let us hope so.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

How does he carry on?

I have been avoiding the use of the name of the immediate past president of the United States simply because I am sick of seeing it in print or hearing it stated on the air.

For the purpose of this post, I will forgo my boycott of his name and ask: How in the world does Donald J. Trump carry on as a former president?

He is more than likely going to be indicted for alleged criminal activity, although I am writing the word “alleged” only to be fair; I believe he is as guilty as they come.

It could come from the Manhattan, N.Y. district attorney, who has empaneled a grand jury to look into the $130,000 hush money payment to Stormy Daniels, the porn star with whom he had a one-night fling. The indictment could come from Fulton County, Ga., DA Fani Willis, who has seated a grand jury to determine whether Trump committed a crime when he demanded that the Georgia secretary of state “find” enough votes to help him win the state’s electoral votes in 2020.

Or … the indictment could come from special counsel Jack Smith, who is probing Trump’s incitement of the insurrection on 1/6 as well as the squirreling away of classified documents he took illegally from the White House upon leaving office.

Presidents usually spend their post-presidential time planning for their libraries. They take up good causes, you know … pursuing world peace, helping women find their way, being role models for our youth, working with our wounded veterans.

Trump is doing none of that. Zero. He is spending his waking hours fending off these prosecutors while seeking to run for POTUS a third time.

There won’t be an unveiling at the White House of an official portrait of Trump and his wife. There will be no official White House ceremony marking his tenure as POTUS.

Indeed, the first line of his obituary will mention either his two impeachments or his indictments … or both incidents!

The man’s legacy is shot to hell! Period!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

How about the ‘I’ word?

The MAGA cabal within the Republican Party wants to impeach President Biden for … what, precisely, is beyond me.

We keep hearing the yammering from the likes of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who proclaims that the president is a failure. She doesn’t specify a “high crime or misdemeanor” on which she would base an impeachment. She just talks about it.

Actually, Greene is as stupid a member of the MAGA cabal as there is.

It’s good to remember the last three presidential impeachments that occurred within the past 25 years. Two of them were legit; the third was, well, questionable.

House of Representatives Republicans were looking for a reason to impeach President Clinton throughout the 1990s. When the late Kenneth Starr, the special counsel appointed to examine a real estate deal called Whitewater, began snooping around beyond his original charge, the president handed the GOP a reason to impeach him.

He lied to a federal grand jury about an affair he was having with a White House intern. Yes, Clinton committed a crime by perjuring himself. That was all Republicans needed. They impeached him on three counts. He was acquitted. I question the political motivation behind that impeachment and wonder to this day why impeach a president for lying about a dalliance.

Then came the twin impeachments of Donald Trump, who in my mind committed far worse offenses. The first impeachment was triggered by his seeking a “favor” from the Ukrainian president; Trump wanted a foreign leader to dig up dirt on Joe Biden. Wrong! He can’t do that, says the Constitution.

Then came his incitement of the assault on the Capitol on 1/6, which was a clear violation of his oath of office.

The House impeached him for each offense. The Senate trials ended up with Trump staying in office. The second trial resulted in a 57-43 vote to convict, but it wasn’t enough, as the Constitution requires a two-thirds majority to boot a POTUS from office.

One can argue that all three were “legitimate” issues for which a president could be impeached. The Clinton case was technically legit; both Trump cases were the real thing.

Now we have the MAGAites calling for Joe Biden’s impeachment.

I am left to ask: for … what?

Impeachment madness must end in the House. Joe Biden has done not a damn thing that falls remotely into the category of “impeachable offense.” All he has done is seek to right a ship of state that was damaged when he took office.

To my reckoning, he has largely succeeded. That won’t shut down the MAGA cultists. They are a shameful pack of demagogues.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

How will Trump be remembered?

Events in my personal life have taken my mind mostly away from current news events … but I do want to offer a brief comment on something that has me wondering.

How will the nation eventually recall the single term as president of one Donald John Trump?

Presidents who seek a second term but lose that effort have faded away. Some of them have forged fine careers and lives after their defeat.

I am thinking of Presidents Herbert Hoover, George H.W.  Bush, Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford. They all lost campaigns, conceded to the winners, accepted their defeat and then entered private life. Some of them did good work that benefited others. Presidents Hoover and Carter come to mind as men who found new life after serving in public office.

Donald Trump? Wow! How in the world is this guy going to be remembered? He likely won’t build a presidential library. I cannot imagine him being honored with a presidential portrait that would hang in the White House. Will he do anything at all to help the underprivileged or underserved? Hah!

He hasn’t yet conceded that he lost his re-election effort. He likely is going to be indicted for some crime he allegedly committed.

I would call it a tragedy that his single-term legacy has been damaged. Except that he has done the damage himself.

Not a damn thing is “normal” about this guy. His political career began seemingly as a prank. Then he won the 2016 election in what I consider to be the greatest political fluke in U.S. history!

Donald Trump has squandered every single opportunity he ever could have had to be remembered with any sort of fondness.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com