Tag Archives: MAGA

education news, local news

Pay attention to these contests

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I am going to pay careful attention to the Princeton Independent School District Board of Trustees election coming up this fall.

It’s not because I have children in the school system. I don’t. My two sons are middle-aged men and one of them is Daddy to our 9-year-old granddaughter and they reside in nearby Allen.

I am interested in the PISD contests because I want to be mindful of the campaign material they put out. I want to look for evidence of any candidate who is going to sound off on that idiotic notion of banning what they call “critical race theory” from our school curriculum; or whether they intend to champion the banning of other textbooks that seek to cast any sort of negative eye on our history.

I keep hearing about how the MAGA crowd is seeking to penetrate our public schools. They are running candidates who adhere to some of the goofier — and frankly, dangerous — notions about how we should run our public-school systems.

I also intend to stay alert to candidates who talk openly about siphoning public money away to pay for school vouchers to allow parents to enroll their children in private schools. Moreover, I’ll be listening for rhetoric that suggests we should allow the re-entry of state-sanctioned religion into our public classrooms. I have said many times that religion should be taught in church, not in school.

Finally, I intend to listen for those candidates who want to put firearms into the hands of teachers and give them the go-ahead to use those weapons in the event of trouble inside our schools.

This will be a critical election. My intention simply is to learn as much as I can about these candidates and work — if I deem it necessary — to prevent certain candidates from being elected.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news, national news, political news

Clearing the air on GOP

I feel the need to clear the air and disabuse some readers of this blog who might be drawing an incorrect inference … which is that I hate all Republicans.

Not true. Not even close to being true. What I do hate is what has become of the Republican Party, which has morphed into a cult dedicated to the ambition of one man, a former president who has managed to persuade his followers that he has more talent, more know-how and more knowledge than he actually does.

My final stop in my 37-year print journalism career took me to the heart of conservative Republicanism. The Texas Panhandle is as rock-ribbed Republican as any region in America.

As a consequence of my working there, I managed to make many acquaintances and friendships with those who happen to be Republicans. It makes sense, right? Of course it does!

My career ended in the summer of 2012, but my friendships with Republicans lives on. One of my best friends in my post-journalism years turned out to be the late Ernie Houdashell, the Randall County judge. He and I jousted frequently over Asian food about politics. He didn’t change my mind and I didn’t change his. However, I loved that man.

I came to know and respect many GOP politicians. They served in county offices; they were legislators; I came to know those who worked on the grassroots level, active in Potter and Randall County Republican politics. They are fine men and women.

I aim my anger at those who have perverted the Republican Party. The No. 1 GOP pervert, of course, happens to be the 45th POTUS. The New York attorney general today filed a lawsuit against the ex-POTUS and three of his adult children, alleging widespread fiscal fraud. The craven cultists’ reaction? They’re going to accuse AG Letitia James of all manner of misdeeds, malfeasance and mischief.

The perversion has spread throughout Congress, into statehouses, even into county courthouses, city halls and school board conference rooms. Those who continue to foment The Big Lie about the alleged “theft” of the 2020 presidential election will continue to receive my unadulterated scorn and rage.

So will those who continue to throw their blind loyalty to a crook, a liar and a self-aggrandizing narcissist who doesn’t give a rat’s ass about them … but only about himself.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news, political news

Democrats playing with fire

I remain concerned, but not yet frightened, over the prospect of Democrats working overtly to help nominate MAGA-loving, election-denying, fruitcake Republicans to high public office.

It’s going on all across the country, with Democrats contributing actual cash money and casting actual votes for Republicans believing that nominating the weakest candidates guarantees a victory for Democrats this fall.

Not so fast, folks.

This is a game fraught with peril.

What in the world is going to happen if voters actually elect these election deniers to, say, governorships? There are individuals on some state ballots who promise to overturn the results of the 2024 presidential election if the “wrong” candidate wins. These are the folks Democrats are helping win their party’s nomination. Holy cow!

This kind of electoral tomfoolery can work. It also can backfire.

It’s the kind of act that makes me nervous.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Joe Biden, national news, national security, political news

Why the hysterical response?

Am I imagining it or is the right-wing cabal of alleged political thinkers acting as if the president of the United States might have hit ’em where they hurt?

President Biden took some national TV time the other evening to blame the “MAGA Republicans” who comprise a shrinking but still significant portion of a once-grand old party for stealing the “soul of the nation.” He also called them a threat to democracy because of their constant threats of violence and their insistence that the 2020 presidential election was the result of “widespread voter fraud.”

The right-wingers have fired back with both barrels. They accuse Biden of inciting division himself. They call him the worst president in history. They excoriate him for offending “half the country” that still supports Donald Trump; actually, it ain’t half, but instead is a significant — but dwindling — minority of Americans who still swallow the swill that Trump is serving.

The hysterical response suggests to me that President Biden has told ’em the truth. Or, as President “Give “em Hell Harry” Truman might say, “He told them the truth and they just think it’s hell.”

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news, national news, national security, political news

MAGAites churn my stomach

Reaction to President Biden’s speech in defense of the “soul of America” from the MAGA cabal of kooks has been, to say the least, more than a bit unsettling.

The treasonous cultists who adhere to the phony philosophy that seeks to Make America Great Again now are ascribing to President Biden the very characteristics we all have seen exhibited in real time by Donald J. Trump.

They are pissed off because they allege Biden has declared war on “half the country.” How do I say this clearly? No, he is not! Biden has sought to wage rhetorical warfare against a shrinking element of the MAGA base that continues to buy into The Big Lie about alleged widespread voter fraud … that does not exist.

Think for a moment about the cultists who buy into one thing their “esteemed leader” said this week: Trump said that if hell freezes over and he is returned as president that he will give “serious thought” to issuing blanket pardons for those who took part in the 1/6 attack on our government. (Actually, the “hell freezes over” reference is mine, not Trump’s … as if you didn’t know.)

My point is that nothing makes my blood boil more at this moment than the notion of the traitorous mob being pardoned for their assault on our democratic process, when they smashed through windows, threatened to “Hang Mike Pence!” and crapped on the floor of our Capitol Building.

Biden made several points with crystal clarity. The one that stands out for me was when he declared that you “cannot support our democracy only when you win.” 

The Big Lie believers cannot accept that the Big Liar in Chief lost the 2020 election. Nor can they accept the righteous and deserved scolding they received from the man who defeated their cult hero.

Yes, they pose a threat to our democracy. The rest of us must — and I use this term metaphorically — put them down.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Uncategorized

Biden goes for MAGA’s throat

If you are wondering at this moment whether President Biden is up for a fight with those who seek to undermine our democratic process, well, you weren’t paying a lick of attention to what the president said in a speech delivered in front of Independence Hall.

He went straight after who he called “MAGA Republicans” and their leader, Donald John Trump. He called the MAGA wing of the GOP opposed to democracy, he accused them of fomenting political violence, he said they want to establish an authoritarian regime.

Game on!

Meanwhile, we hear from Donald Trump, who told a right-wing radio station that if he is elected POTUS — God forbid! — he would likely grant full pardons for everyone who took part in the 1/6 attack on our government.

Is there possibly a greater reason to work like hell to keep that moron out of the White House … for the rest of his sorry life?

President Biden looks to me to be ready to wage political war against those who already have declared war against the government.

Well done, Mr. President.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Joe Biden, national news

MAGA = serious threat

President Biden is correct to assert that the MAGA wing of the Republican Party poses an existential threat to our democracy.

These are the fruitcakes, the adherents of the Make America Great Again wing of the once-Grand Old Party, who continue to insist that The Big Lie is the Big Truth, that the 2020 election was stolen from the MAGA Liar in Chief and that there must be hell to pay for a transgression that did not exist.

The president has kicked into 2022 midterm election campaign mode. I welcome his return to the fight. Of course, the mainstream Republican Party — which ought to hail the president’s message as a comforting elixir — is condemning him for speaking the truth.

Donald Trump this week called for the immediate removal of Mitch McConnell as GOP Senate leader. Why? Because McConnell — belatedly, of course — is now speaking the truth about Trump, that the ex-POTUS poses a dangerous threat to the democratic process.

Milquetoast Mitch likely won’t fight back with the ferocity that such an insult deserves. He probably doesn’t want to pi** off the MAGA cultists who continue to consume the swill that Trump serves them about The Big Lie and how he’s being “persecuted” by those “far-left Democrats.”

Trump is becoming unhinged daily by defections from his ranks, by continuing negative developments into the investigation of his effort to steal the 2020 election.

There can be no doubt Joe Biden is right on this one, calling MAGA Republicans the nation’s greatest political threat.

They sicken me.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

State news

MAGA takes new form

So … you think you know what MAGA means, yes?

It has become sort of a term of art, an acronym for Make America Great Again. But when you use the acronym form it becomes an adjective, as in “MAGA voter,” or “MAGA policy.”

Ah, yes. Now comes the newest MAGA, which is one that I would be inclined heavily to support. The new form stands for Mothers Against Greg Abbott.

This MAGA’s unofficial godmother is Austin resident Nancy Thompson, who told Sharon Grigsby of the Dallas Morning News that she has grown tired of Gov. Abbott’s miserable performance on gun violence, on COVID protocols, on abortion rights and the Republican Party’s “general assault on public education and kids.”

She wants to form a movement. Thompson says her Facebook page has more than 50,000 members. Local chapters are forming across Texas.

Grigsby reports that Thompson “describes the group as ordinary Texans fighting for their children’s future. ‘This isn’t about Republican or Democratic families,’ she said. ‘It’s about fighting for what’s right to keep all families safe and healthy.'”

Grigsby said she isn’t willing to wager on MAGA’s effort moving the political needle in Texas, particularly as it regards Abbott’s campaign against Democratic challenger Beto O’Rourke. I believe she is right to hold back on any thought that this MAGA group is going to make any sort of dent in Abbott’s standing.

Whatever, this potential movement appears to be one more chink in the armor that has shielded Abbott and Texas Republicans quite well for the past 30 years.

Read Grisby’s essay here: How one Texas woman’s protest led to Mothers Against Greg Abbott and its viral abortion ad (dallasnews.com)

Grigsby asks: “Does Mothers Against Greg Abbott create a huge shift? Don’t count on it. But does it make a consequential dent? As one mother in its video campaign says, ‘They say nothing changes in Texas politics — until it does.'”

I am hoping for a change.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

GOP might rescue Democrats

There can be no greater political irony imaginable than to think that Democrats’ greatest ally in the midterm competition against Republicans might be … Republicans!

The GOP was poised to grab control of both congressional chambers once we count the ballots of the midterm election. Then something odd happened: the godfather of current GOP, Donald Trump, began endorsing certifiable nut jobs for high office.

A.B. Stoddard, writing for RealClearPolitics, reports: Republicans are now panicked that what was once a dream election year could end up a nightmare. A recent report in Axios described GOP anxiety this way: “Top Republicans, once confident about winning control of the Senate in the midterms, fear they’ll blow it after nominating several deeply flawed candidates in winnable states, according to conversations with GOP strategists, pollsters and other officials.” The Senate candidates they are most worried about are Dr. Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania, Herschel Walker in Georgia, J.D. Vance in Ohio, Blake Masters in Arizona, and Eric Greitens in Missouri.

Oz, Vance, Greitens and Masters are seeking to keep Senate seats in Republican control. They all are trailing their Democratic foes. Walker is challenging a Democratic incumbent in Georgia and he, too, is trailing Sen. Raphael Warnock.

Trump’s recommendations haven’t exactly helped most of his endorsees. Many of the MAGA-friendly candidates are downright frightening. Herschel Walker comes to mind.

Will Trump and MAGA Candidates Slow the Red Wave? | RealClearPolitics

The so-called Red Wave well might swamp the House of Representatives. The Senate is looking like there might be an altogether different outcome than what many of us had expected.

If the GOP falls short, I believe they should look inward and ask: Can we do better than line up behind the lawlessness promoted by a twice-impeached POTUS?

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Lesson in ethics

I watched an interesting bit of ethical correctness play out this week at a city council meeting I was covering for a newspaper for which I work on a freelance basis.

The Farmersville City Council made several appointments Tuesday night to citizen boards and commissions. One of the appointees was Sue Williams, who happens to be married to Terry Williams — who happens to serve on the City Council.

What did Terry Williams do prior to the vote? He motioned to the city attorney and asked to recuse himself from the vote. Terry Williams walked out of the council chambers and the council then voted to put Sue Williams on the board to which she had been nominated.

Why mention this? Ohhhh, because a member of the U.S. Supreme Court doesn’t have the semblance of ethical propriety to recuse himself from court matters involving his wife.

Justice Clarence Thomas has voted on matters related to The Big Lie promoted by Donald J. Trump, the defeated and disgraced former president who — to this very moment — hasn’t yet conceded that he lost the 2020 election to President Biden.

The most recent ethical transgression occurred a few weeks ago when the Supreme Court voted 8-1 to require Trump to turn over White House records to the House select committee examining the 1/6 insurrection. Who voted “no”? Justice Thomas.

Why did he vote no? It might have something to with the fact that his wife, Ginni, is an ardent MAGA follower of Trump and a believer in The Big Lie who attended the 1/6 rally but left before it turned into a violent frontal assault on the U.S. government.

Clarence Thomas clearly should take a page from the ethical book followed by a small-town city council member in North Texas.

Whereas Terry Williams saw the potential for conflict of interest were he to vote to accept his wife for a spot on a citizens panel, Clarence Thomas continues to ignore that gigantic blind spot.

Indeed, the justice would solve the problem altogether by resigning from the nation’s highest court — which he clearly should do.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com