Tag Archives: John Cornyn

State news

Cornyn says Trump can’t win? Hah! Ya think?

The minute I heard about what Sen. John Cornyn said about Donald Trump’s chances of become POTUS once again, I thought instantly of a friend of mine in Amarillo … who called Cornyn a RINO.

I chuckled when my friend said such nonsense, because Cornyn is nothing of the sort. The San Antonio native is as rock-ribbed a Republican as you’ll find. He just happens to believe that the GOP is going to lose the 2024 presidential election if it nominates the twice-impeached former POTUS to run against President Biden.

It’s time, Cornyn said, to nominate someone without all the baggage that Trump is lugging around. Starting with the very real probability he is facing multiple future indictments for criminal activity.

Frankly, I don’t know why I am even remotely concerned about any of this. I try like heck to shove Trump aside. I am refusing to comment on every single lie that flies out of his pie-hole.

It’s just that when a solid GOP politician such as John Cornyn says Trump would take his party down the drain, the party ought to heed the advice this Texas wise man has to deliver.

Then again, were he to run for POTUS yet again, maybe it’s good that he would lose once more.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news

Cornyn a RINO? Hardly!

AMARILLO, Texas — A longtime friend of mine revealed something to me today I did not expect.

He called John Cornyn, the state’s senior U.S. senator, a Republican In Name Only. I could only respond with, “Cornyn a RINO? No, he isn’t.” My friend wasn’t to be deterred. Yes, he is, my friend said. So is George W. Bush and so, too, is the rest of the state “in danger” of becoming a “blue state.”

Ah, but then he laughed it all off. He said, “I guess it depends on your perspective.” Yep, boy howdy, dude!

My friend is a fellow I admire greatly, and I will continue to admire him and will call him my friend. I just am going to suppose that we won’t talk politics in the near — or likely distant — future.

I came back to where we lived for 23 years. I guess my discovery of my friend’s political outlook reminded me of just how “conservative” the right wing swings in this part of the world. It reminded me of how the Panhandle once served as a breeding ground for the John Birch Society, about how so many residents of this community adhered to the ultra right wing of the political spectrum.

My friend took a moment to note during our visit that I am “exposed to all them liberals in Dallas.” Therefore, it doesn’t bother me, he conjectured.

I then informed him that because of recent events in my life I am divorcing myself from politics — at least from the extent I have been involved in them in recent years. Yeah, I know that this is a “political” blog post, but its intent is to illustrate one of the discoveries I have made on my westward journey from my home in North Texas.

And so … the journey continues in the morning to places far out west.

Pacific Ocean? Here I come!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

legal news, local news, national news, political news, State news

Say it ain’t so, Ronny J!

Someone might have to pass some smelling salts to help revive me if what I read actually comes true.

It is that Rep. Ronny Jackson, the Amarillo Republican who’s curried favor with the Donald Trump cabal of kooks, might run for the U.S. Senate in 2026. Yep, the one-time White House doc might challenge U.S. Sen. John Cornyn in four years presuming Cornyn decides to seek re-election.

That means if Jackson actually wins in 2026 then the whole state will have to endure his tweets, his ongoing assault against those who disagree with his MAGA-loving demagoguery.

The guy is a carpetbagging clown show barker who moved into the 13th Congressional District specifically to run for Congress from the Texas Panhandle.

Ronny Jackson, prominent Trump ally, weighing U.S. Senate run in 2026 | The Texas Tribune

Jackson is a Trumpkin through and through. He doesn’t deserve re-election to his House seat, let alone election to a seat in what once was known as “the world’s greatest deliberative body.”

Keep the salts handy.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news, State news

Compromise can work

Ted Cruz keeps demonstrating why he is such a loathsome politician, suggesting repeatedly why it’s better in his sick mind to go down on principle rather than seeking common ground.

The Texas Republican junior U.S. senator was one of 34 GOP senators to vote “no” on a bill crafted in part by his Texas Republican colleague, John Cornyn.

Cornyn was the lead GOP negotiator on a bipartisan effort to seek legislative remedy to the gun violence that continues to break our hearts, such as what happened not long ago in Uvalde.

OK, the bill ain’t perfect. It’s a start, though, toward curbing violent outbursts.

The National Rifle Association, naturally, has condemned the effort. The NRA doesn’t want anyone to mess around with what it says are constitutional guarantees of firearm ownership. Except that the bill doesn’t stop law-abiding Americans from owning a firearm. Ted Cruz is in the NRA’s hip pocket.

The Texas Tribune reports: The legislation does not restrict any rights of existing gun owners — a nonstarter for Senate Republicans. Instead, it would enhance background checks for gun purchasers younger than 21; make it easier to remove guns from people threatening to kill themselves or others, as well as people who have committed domestic violence; clarify who needs to register as a federal firearms dealer; and crack down on illegal gun trafficking, including so-called straw purchases, which occur when the actual buyer of a firearm uses another person to execute the paperwork to buy on their behalf.

The legislation includes $11 billion for mental health services and $2 billion for community-based antiviolence programs. It also includes money to help young people access mental health services via telemedicine, money for more school-based mental health centers and support for suicide hotlines.

U.S. Senate advances bipartisan gun legislation backed by Cornyn | The Texas Tribune

Is this the stuff of radicalism? Hardly. It’s a reasonable start.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

State news

Texas GOP: gone bonkers

It’s as official as I can determine it: the Texas Republican Party has spun off its axis, it is out of its collective mind, it has been taken over by the Donald J. Trump cultists, the believers in The Big Lie.

The state GOP has concluded its convention in Houston and has declared that President Biden is not “legitimately” elected to the nation’s highest office. The 2020 election, the state GOP said in its resolution, is too “rife” with fraud.

Now comes the question: Does the Republican Party have proof of that preposterous allegation?

The answer: No! It does not!

Hey, the state GOP don’t need no stinkin’ proof! It just swallows the swill served up by the former Snake Oil Salesman in Chief, who has defamed the nation’s electoral system since the moment he lost the 2020 election.

Fed up and fired up: Texas Republicans meet in a climate of mistrust, conspiracy and victimhood | The Texas Tribune

The convention had plenty of lowlights. Such as when conventioneers booed U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, as staunch and devoted a Republican as anyone in the convention hall. His claim to infamy? He sought to work with Democrats in crafting a bill that seeks to curb gun violence. You can’t do that, senator … say the diehard cultists who now dominate the Texas Republican Party.

I’ll be brutally honest. I never thought I would see this day in the evolution of the Texas political system. I moved to Texas when it was still dominated nominally by conservative Democrats. Then the “red tide” began to swell in the mid- to late 1980s. Mainstream Republicans began winning public office.

A Republican governor, George W. Bush, scored a lot of points across the spectrum through his ability to work with Democrats who still controlled the Legislature in the mid-1990s.

Those days are gone. I hope not forever. We have now a state GOP dominated by know-nothings, fruitcakes and nut jobs … which more or less mirrors the Republican National Committee.

The believe in The Big Lie. They purposely spread its falsehoods. Therefore, the Texas Republican Party is populated by liars.

Shame on them, and shame on those who put the liars in charge.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news

Family to Cruz: go to hell!

The loved ones who welcomed home a young Texan who was held captive in Russia for more than two years have made an unusual declaration that they tucked in the middle of a thank-you statement to Texas politicians for their work in securing the young man’s release.

They blasted Sen. Ted Cruz for doing nothing to help win the release of Trevor Reed, whose father, Joey Reed, has declared his intention to defeat Cruz whenever the junior Republican senator decides to run for re-election.

The Reed family, who live in Granbury, thanked GOP U.S. Sen. John Cornyn for his help, along with GOP U.S. Reps. August Pfluger and Mike McCaul for what they did to secure Trevor’s release. They thanked President Biden for what he did, too.

“[Cruz] didn’t do anything,” Joey Reed said. “He’s an embarrassment to the state of Texas, let me just say that. I don’t care what or who runs against him, I will work for their campaign to defeat that son of a b-tch.”

Trevor Reed had been held for an assault he said he didn’t commit. The Biden administration was a bit slow to get involved, but it did and added the necessary push to persuade the Russians to release Reed in a prisoner exchange.

Ted Cruz was nowhere to be seen or heard … according to Joey Reed.

‘He’s an embarrassment’: Ted Cruz slammed by family of ex-Marine Trevor Reed after release from Russia (msn.com)

It’s unusual for the family of someone in the news to lash out in this manner, which makes me believe they have a point in singling out Cruz who, as I concluded long ago, only is interested in furthering his own needs.

Constituent service? Cruz couldn’t care less.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

legal news

Will they be ‘respectful’?

US. Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz will have plenty of explaining to do if they follow their partisan instincts and vote against the historic nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson to join the U.S. Supreme Court.

These two are Texas’s senators on Capitol Hill. They both opposed Judge Jackson’s previous appointment to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. They both pledge to give President Biden’s pick for the high court respect, while ensuring a vigorous vetting of her credentials to become the sixth woman and the first Black woman ever to join to the nation’s highest court.

President Biden promised to find a jurist with unassailable legal credentials. By most accounts, he hit a home run with Judge Jackson’s nomination. He also promised to select a Black woman if he got the chance to nominate someone to the court; he got that chance when Justice Stephen Breyer announced he would retire this summer at the end of the court’s term.

If senators are going to judge a nominee on her credentials, on her legal scholarship, on her temperament then Judge Jackson should sail through. That won’t be senators’ measuring stick. They’re going to look for reasons to oppose someone — if we’re truthful — simply because she was selected by a president of the opposing party.

“Ultimately, I will be looking to see whether Judge Jackson will uphold the rule of law and call balls and strikes, or if she will legislate from the bench in pursuit of a specific agenda,” Cornyn said. Well … isn’t that special? The senior U.S. senator from Texas, I presume, would have us believe that judges selected by Republican presidents have no “specific agenda.”

https://www.texastribune.org/2022/02/25/ted-cruz-john-cornyn-ketanji-brown-jackson/

I guess I need to remind the senator of what Donald Trump promised when he selected Justice Amy Coney Barrett to join the court after Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died in 2020. Trump promised to select someone who would overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark ruling that legalized abortion. Isn’t that finding a jurist with a specific agenda? Yes! It most certainly is such a thing!

I also should add that Donald Trump insisted on justices who would “legislate from the bench.” Are you paying attention, Sen. Cruz?

Judge Jackson is a first-rate nominee to join the Supreme Court. Sens. Cornyn and Cruz must be held to their pledges to give her a respectful confirmation hearing.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Hypocrisy rules within GOP

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Senate Republicans such as Ted Cruz and John Cornyn of Texas have gotten their shorts all knotted up over the debt ceiling increase pitched by their Democratic colleagues.

And yet they had no trouble voting to increase the debt ceiling during the four years that Donald J. Trump was seeking it from the White House.

Ted Cruz and John Cornyn have mixed histories with debt-ceiling votes | The Texas Tribune

What gives? Why the change in heart? Oh, yeah. President Biden is a Democrat; Trump is a Republican. Politics has nothing to do with it, right? OK, let’s just say the answer is obvious: politics has everything to do with it.

Some Republicans kinda caved this week when they voted to allow a vote on whether to increase the ceiling. Cornyn was one of the GOP senators who went along with it. Cruz didn’t. He bitched about his colleagues surrendering to Democrats in a Senate floor speech.

Back to my question. Why was it OK to do it during the previous administration, but it isn’t OK now?

The GOP’s blatant partisanship and obstruction is so obvious.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

medical news, national news, State news

It isn’t ‘mislabeled!’

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Texas two U.S. senators, Republicans Ted Cruz and John Cornyn, voted against the COVID-19 relief bill, they say, because it is “mislabeled.”

They contend that it is too full of money that seeks to satisfy liberal/progressive interest groups and political activists.

Pardon my Greek, but these two alleged legislative representatives are full of sh**. 

Is the bill the perfect remedy to help Americans back from the pandemic precipice? No. However, it does contain sufficient help for those who have suffered grievous economic hardship. Moreover, it sets aside money to continue the development of vaccines that are rolling out as we sit here that will help inoculate more of us against the virus.

How many ways do we have to explain how this process works to the ideologues/demagogues who populate the supposedly loyal opposition to President Biden?

I keep hearing the canard about how only 9 percent of the money goes directly to COVID-19 relief. That’s another crock of fecal matter. CNN.com provides a link that explains what is in the bill.

What’s in the Covid relief bill – CNNPolitics

If you look at the items lined out, you will understand that the word “directly” is critical. I concede that not all the funds go directly to aid with COVID-related relief. However, much of the money serves the purpose, such as nutrition aid, or housing aid, or tax credits for individuals and families.

The impact of the pandemic has been sweeping and it has hit Americans thoroughly. That is why President Biden insisted that Congress should “go big” in seeking relief for Americans. He settled on $1.9 trillion in relief. I get that it isn’t cheap. However, I am willing to endorse this notion because of my belief that the federal government should answer the call when emergency strikes.

Last time I gave it any thought, I consider the killer pandemic a first-rank national emergency that needs a proportional response.

Sens. Cruz and Cornyn — and the rest of their GOP colleagues in both congressional chambers — are on the wrong side of this debate.

State news

Candidate touts military heroics?

(AP Photo/Eric Gay)

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I’ve been stewing about this ever since I saw the ad the first time a couple of weeks ago, so now I will vent just a bit.

M.J. Hegar is running for the U.S. Senate in Texas occupied by John Cornyn. She defeated state Sen. Royce West of Dallas in a Democratic Party primary runoff for the right to challenge the Republican incumbent.

But I think she’s treading into an off-putting campaign strategy, one in which she seems to boast about her own military service in Afghanistan. She talks about her time as an Air Force helicopter pilot, about being shot down and then kind of crows about being awarded a Silver Star and Purple Heart for her actions on the battlefield.

I don’t begrudge Hegar’s service. I honor it and I respect it greatly. I do, though, believe it is unbecoming for her to seemingly boast about her service in a paid political ad. That is the kind of commentary that should be left for others to say on her behalf. Those who perform heroically in combat customarily are reluctant to talk about such deeds.

Yes, other political candidates have run for office after serving with valor and heroism on the battlefield. I don’t recall hearing them — speaking in their own voice — seemingly boast about it.

I don’t believe I am alone in feeling this way.

Bad call, Ms. Hegar.