Tag Archives: MAGA

local news

We do not need POTUS 45 in office

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I have believed this for some time, but it needs to be said anyway.

U.S. Rep. Ronny Jackson, R-Amarillo, is out of his fu**ing mind! He is nuts. Bonkers, Loony. Certifiably nuts.

He pushed out a Twitter note this morning in which he said that the 45th president of the U.S. of A. “needs to return to the White House.”

Umm. No. He doesn’t. He needs to be committed, sent away, banished from the halls of power.

POTUS 45 is an existential threat to the government of the country he once led. He is a liar, an insurrectionist, a seditionist, a morally bankrupt con man.

But he’s got his friends in Congress. One of them is Rep. Jackson, who now represents the congressional district where I once lived.

These idiots deserve each other.

national news

‘Club’ door will slam shut on this guy

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

One of the more exclusive clubs on Earth currently comprises just five members. However, only four men are being allowed inside whatever passes for a clubhouse frequented by its occupants.

I refer to the Former U.S. Presidents Club. It once was a revered de facto institution. The men who once served as commander in chief occasionally would huddle together, talk among themselves, perhaps even offer some advice to the current president of the United States.

Four of these men seem all willing to engage in this kind of time-honored camaraderie. Then there’s the fifth former POTUS. No. 45 is wired so differently. It defies any form of logic to understand how the 45th POTUS — whose name I will continue to refuse to publish on this blog — ever can assimilate with his colleagues, all the men who once had the nuclear codes, who lent aid and comfort to the nation in grief, performed the myriad written and unwritten duties of the high office.

Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama represent different political parties. Three of them are Democrats; one is a Republican. Even among the Democrats didn’t always walk in lockstep with each other. They all had a serious common thread that binds them at several levels. They all were humbled by the office. They all are true-blue patriots. They all carried themselves with dignity. They all accepted political defeat when fate turned against them.

Then there’s the fifth former POTUS.

He embodies none of that. He won’t accept publicly that President Biden defeated him. He continues to lie. He denigrates fallen heroes of past wars.

The most immediate past POTUS likely never will be welcome inside the Former Presidents Clubhouse. Why should he be welcome? The former Numbskull in Chief has worn out his welcome to the political arena. He continues to hurl insults and invective at all of the men who preceded him.

I wouldn’t object one little bit if the other POTUSes simply kept the clubhouse door locked to prevent No. 45 from entering it.

national news

Ex-POTUS = anti-democracy

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By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Spoiler alert: I am about to break my vow to ban the name of the 45th president of the United States from this blog; I will mention his name once … that’s it.

Donald J. Trump’s name is going to become synonymous with nefarious and evil efforts to undermine our democratic process.

You see, the 45th president has decided to make the integrity of the 2020 presidential election, which he lost, the primary issue in the 2022 midterm election. He is going to continue fomenting The Big Lie that the election was fraught with widespread vote fraud.

The one-time Liar in Chief wants to be reinstated as POTUS. It won’t happen in a zillion years. President Joe Biden won the election fairly, squarely and legally. Despite the shenanigans being played out in places such as Arizona — where they’re conducting that fake “audit” of returns — President Biden will hold onto the office at least through January 2025.

None of that will stop the ex-Imbecile in Chief from seeking to overturn an election he lost bigly. Biden captured 7 million more votes than his predecessor; Biden’s electoral vote margin mirrored that of his predecessor in 2016.

The disgraceful and treasonous conduct of Biden’s immediate predecessor will inscribe him forever as the individual who could not accept defeat. He could not bring himself to congratulate the winner for defeating him. The ex-POTUS cannot acknowledge that he now owns an epithet he likes to hang on others: loser.

He will seek to harvest the mistrust he has helped sow into the numb noggins of those who follow him. He will use The Big Lie as grist to elect more dipsh**s just like him.

The major casualty in all of this trash-talk is the democratic process itself. The ex-POTUS won’t prevail in his effort to overturn the most secure election in U.S. history. However, I fear for the well-being of the democratic process that is being assaulted day and night incessantly by the one-time Carnival Barker in Chief.

This moron’s name will — and most certainly should — live in infamy.

local news

Rep./Dr. Jackson needs to shut the hell up

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

It’s official.

The individual who now represents the congressional district where I lived for 23 years has established himself as a first-rate a**hole.

Republican Ronny Jackson said this via Twitter: Fauci and Democrats have been covering for China for over a year about the origins of this virus. They’ll badmouth America any chance they get, but with China, they’re SILENT. Wonder why that is??

This guy is a menace. To think that he gets to vote on laws that affect all Americans, not just those in the Texas Panhandle — where he moved to run for Congress in 2020 after spending his entire adult life far away — is reprehensible on its face.

He succeeded Republican Mac Thornberry, who served the district with dignity for 25 years, even though I rarely agreed with his politics. Jackson has taken to Twitter to taunt Democrats, just like his hero, Donald J. Trump.

He sickens me.

national news

It’s all topsy turvy

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

My ever-lovin’ goodness.

I am cheering for Liz Cheney, a right-wing Republican member of Congress.

She is about to be stripped of her chairmanship of the Republican House caucus because … she is telling the truth about Donald Trump, the ex-POTUS and insurrectionist in chief.

It’s a dark day if you’re a Republican. I am not. I call myself a “good government progressive.” In Texas, in fact, we don’t register as Democrats or Republicans. We vote in open primaries. We get to vote in whatever primary we choose. The election judge might stamp our voter registration card with a “D” or an “R.” Or he or she might not.

Still, I dislike Liz Cheney’s politics. Too right wing for my taste.

However, she ain’t buckling under the pressure of the Trumpkin Corps. She is continuing to speak the cold, hard truth about Donald Trump, that he’s a threat to our government and that he needs to be stopped.

And so, the Republican poo-bas are going to relieve her of her chairmanship because she won’t swill the poison that makes believers of Trump’s Big Lie about the 2020 election being “stolen.”

Indeed, a dark day is going to dawn very soon on the national Republican Party.

national news

Liz Cheney: My new hero

(Photo by Marc Piscotty/Getty Images)

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Man, it is hard to believe that I am actually pulling for Liz Cheney to fend off this idiotic challenge to her leadership post within the House Republican leadership hierarchy.

The Wyoming lawmaker is being vilified by the Trumpkins who have seized control of the party. Her offense? For voting to impeach Donald J. Trump after the then-POTUS incited the insurrection against the government as it was certifying the results of the 2020 election that went for President Biden over their guy, Trump.

I wouldn’t vote for Rep. Cheney if I lived in Wyoming. She is too much of a right-winger to suit my taste. On this single matter, I find myself rooting for her to survive the challenge launched by the likes of Trump-loving loons Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia.

The House GOP caucus has been virtually silent about Gaetz, who’s being investigated for alleged sex trafficking. As for the QAnon queen Greene, I ain’t hearing much worry from the GOP on her, either.

So now we have Liz Cheney trying to fend off the GOP hyenas. I would much rather have a Republican Party that fuels its existence on the basis of policy differences rather than its fealty to a lunatic like Donald Trump.

I’m pulling for Liz Cheney. If she loses her House GOP caucus post, I hope she keeps her throat cleared and continues to tell her colleagues that they are making a terrible mistake in backing the purveyor of The Big Lie.

International news

Immigrants make us great

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

The most infuriating clause in the proposed America First caucus platform is the one that talks about what its adherents call “mass immigration.”

The so-called congressional caucus — pitched by far right wing conspiracy theorists and assorted loons in Congress — seeks to promote what they refer to as an “Anglo-Saxon culture.” Included in that is this despicable clause denigrating “mass immigration” from places I presume they mean do not fit the Anglo-Saxon stereotype.

I am a product of immigrants from southern Europe. All four of my grandparents chose to spend their lives in United States after moving here from Greece and Turkey. They were patriots. They worked hard. They played by the rules. They brought 10 children into this world among them. One of those children — my father — enlisted in the U.S. Navy on the very day that Japan attacked us at Pearl Harbor and dragged this country into World War II.

The America First caucus does not understand or appreciate the tenet to which all patriotic Americans should subscribe, that the very essence of American greatness and its “unique” culture rests in the hearts of those who choose to come here. I mean no disrespect for native-born Americans; hell, I was born here, too.

I just take profound offense at those in Congress who suggest that immigration — and immigrants — are somehow bad for the country. They all seek to “make America great again” by closing our doors, erecting walls across our southern border and issuing some sort of merit-based standard for those seeking to build new lives in the Land of Opportunity.

Had there been such a standard in force at the turn of the 20th century, I doubt any of my grandparents would have been allowed to come here, allowed to marry and allowed to build their own families.

Am I offended by this America First caucus? You’re damn right I am.

national news

Anglo-Saxon caucus?

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

In the stunning but not surprising category of news items comes this report out of Washington, D.C.

A group of far right Republican members of the House wants to form a cabal, er, caucus comprising those who want to push forward a political agenda that calls attention to the Anglo-Saxon tradition of some of those who preceded us to these shores.

This group includes some real doozies: QAnon believer Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, accused sex trafficker Matt Gaetz of Florida and the lunatic birther from East Texas, Louie Gohmert.

Why is this so pernicious? As the grandson of immigrants who came to this country in the early 20th century from Greece and Turkey, I am appalled and aghast at a provision in the draft policy statement that declares that “mass immigration” would spoil the “unique culture” built in the United States.

Now, give that a moment’s thought. This nation’s uniqueness, the way I see it, is the built on its welcoming of immigrants from around the world. The Statue of Liberty’s inscription tells immigrants that this nation embraces their arrival.

What in the name of all that is decent are the far right wingers trying to do? I think I know. They are trying to slam the door shut on people of color, on the oppressed and fearful. They want our culture to remain true to some myth that we are an Anglo-Saxon nation first and foremost.

Nothing, not a damn thing, could be farther from that version of the truth about the founding and settlement of this country.

I am heartened to see some push back from GOP congressional leaders on this frightening notion. Can they deliver a kill shot to this right wing idiocy being pushed by the Donald Trump/America First wing of the Republican Party? I am going to hope so.

local news, political news

Trump is no one’s POTUS

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Take a gander at this picture.

I don’t know precisely where it was taken. It showed up on my Facebook news feed with a caption that it implies it’s in Dallas.

Eek!

Then someone else posted a note that said Donald Trump 2024 shirts are on sale somewhere in Amarillo. Now that doesn’t entirely surprise me, given the Texas Panhandle’s extreme right-wing tendencies. President Biden carried Dallas County by a handsome margin in 2020. Donald Trump rolled over Biden in Randall and Potter counties — which Amarillo straddles — also by handsome margins.

But … here’s the deal. Donald Trump lost the election. He would lose again were he to run a second time, in my view. I do not believe he is going to run for president again.

Trump has some legal and financial issues with which to contend. Prosecutors in Fulton County, Ga., and Manhattan, N.Y., are breathing down his neck. He has $400 million in debt that is coming due. It’s possible that he will remain blocked from social media platforms on the basis of the Big Lie he keeps spreading about so-called vote fraud in the 2020 election.

He’s already been revealed as a lying fraud. Just maybe lightning will strike, hell will freeze over and the sun will rise in the west one day, and that the Trumpkin Corps of believers will see that their guy is a first-class phony.

medical news

Politics overpowering pandemic battle

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

One of the more astonishing aspects of this fight against the coronavirus pandemic — and there have been so many of them — has been the political tug-of-war over whether to get vaccinated against a disease that has killed 500,000-plus Americans.

On one side we have the MAGA-hat crowd, the folks who continue to stand with an ex-president who spent much of the previous year denying the pandemic was anything to cause worry. They oppose getting vaccinated.

It fell, then, on Dr. Anthony Fauci — the world’s leading infectious disease expert — to implore Donald Trump to encourage his minions to get vaccinated. The ex-president did so and for that I applaud him.

For the life of me I cannot fathom how vaccination protocols have become something to kick around like a proverbial political football.

The evidence of all three U.S. government-approved vaccines’ efficacy is overwhelming. They are helping curb the infection, hospitalization and death rates. Still, we hear reports of individuals declining to get vaccinated because of some lie that refuses to be exterminated that the vaccines aren’t working.

In a related matter, we also hear about individuals refusing to wear masks while doing business with companies that their customers to wear them. Did you see the video of the woman in Galveston getting arrested in a bank because she refused to mask up even though bank policy requires her to do so? She shouts idiotic cliches about her “personal liberty” being infringed by rules aimed at protecting her life and those with whom she comes into contact. Ridiculous!

If there is a sign that the politicization of society has veered out of control, I believe we are seeing it play out in real time … at this very moment. It has to stop!