Tag Archives: Mitch McConnell

national news

Come clean, old timer

Mitch McConnell has a few million “bosses” in Kentucky who have every right to know whether he’s able to represent their interests in the U.S. Senate.

McConnell, who is more than 80 years of age, is hospitalized with an undisclosed illness. He’s been out of action for several weeks. His family isn’t talking about his condition. There actually has been some discussion that he might have died. I don’t think that’s the case.

But this matter brings to mind the issue of elderly men and women in public office and whether they are able to serve the public they were elected to represent. McConnell, the former Republican leader of the Senate, once was a formidable political figure who controlled legislative flow.

This matter spreads across party lines. You’ll recall how the late Diane Feinstein, a California Democrat, missed many months of votes in the Senate. She died from her ailments. Then we have the case of President Biden, who was running for re-election in 2024 when he stumbled badly during a debate with Donald Trump. Questions arose about the president’s mental acuity. Biden said he had all the snap he needed to govern, but he pulled out of his re-election effort.

McConnell’s condition needs to be dealt with openly by the senator. If he is incapable of speaking for himself, his bosses in Kentucky need to know. He is drawing a healthy six-figure salary to make decisions on behalf of the people of his state.

This matter won’t go away … until Mitch McConnell comes clean.

legal news

Time to return the ‘favor’?

You and I know that politicians keep telling us how they hate dealing with hypothetical situations, how they detest questions dealing with circumstances that might not ever occur.

Well, here’s a hypotthetical matter that very well could play out. Bear with me for a moment.

The midterm election this fall could result in a dramatic shift in congressional power, with Democrats reclaiming the majority in the House of Reps … and also the Senate. Let’s suppose the Senate shifts from Republican to Democratic control. Donald Trump is likely to become apoplectic, but this isn’t really about him.

What happens if one of the three liberal seats on the U.S. Supreme Court becomes vacant? A justice might have to resign, or he or she might well … be unable to serve. The Senate then becomes Ground Zero in the battle to fill the seat.

Flash back to 2016. Conservative Justice Antonin Scalia died while vacationing in Texas. President Obama then was able to nominate someone to replace the brilliant jurist Scalia. He chose Merrick Garland, chief justice of the DC Appellate Court.

Not so fast, said then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. We’ve got an election coming up in November and we need tolet the voters decide who becomes president before moving on this nomination, McConnell said. Obama was furious. So were Democratic senators. Everyone praised Garland as an outstanding candidate for the high court. McConnell played his hand brilliantly.

Donald Trump won the 2016 election. He took his oath and then nominated the first of three justices he would get to pick during his first term in office.

It well might be possible for the next Senate majority leader, presuming it’s a Democrat, to pull the same stunt that McConnell used. One liberal justice, Sonia Sotomayor, has hinted openly she might have to step down because of health matters. Do you think a new Senate majority leader is going to roll over and let Trump tilt the court even farther to the right? Hah! I don’t believe that will ever happen.

Elections have consequences, yes? We’re watching in real time how those consequences can play out with a Supreme Court that already has overturned landmark rulings. Thus, it becomes vital to understand how vital it is to select the right Senate candidates when it comes time to speak out.

legal news, national news

McConnell leaves cheap legacy

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I won’t think often of Mitch McConnell once he leaves his post as US Senate Republican leader.

But when I do …

I will remember the cheap partisan game he played by blocking President Obama’s decision to name a justice to the U.S. Supreme Court.

You remember, right. Justice Antonin Scalia was vacationing in Texas when he died suddenly in February 2016. Scalia was the intellectual leader of the conservatives who sat on the high court. A brilliant jurist to be sure. Obama had a right under the Constitution to select a successor.

President Obama paid his respects to Justice Scalia and then turned to the D.C. appellate court and nominated Judge Merrick Garland to succeed Scalia. Garland, by all accounts, was a serious judge, fair-minded and scholarly and, yes, a good bit more liberal in his judicial philosophy than Justice Scalia.

Not so fast, said McConnell, who then led the GOP majority in the Senate. The president shouldn’t be allowed to make an appointment in an election year. He said there would be no confirmation hearing for Garland. The Senate would wait for the election results, McConnell said.  He took a huge gamble, as Donald Trump was a decided underdog in early 2016 in his race against Democratic Party nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton.

What happened? Donald Trump got elected, took the oath in January 2017 and then selected conservative judge Neil Gorsuch to succeed Scalia.

I shall be clear.  McConnell acted legally. He had the right as Senate majority leader to block the president’s nomination.

However, McConnell’s stiff of a president from doing his constitutional duty still doesn’t pass this blogger’s smell test.

The tactic stunk to the highest of the heavens and that should stand as this partisan hack’s most enduring legacy.

Uncategorized

Courts have become political

Our nation’s founders, the men who crafted a federal judiciary they intended to remain “above politics,” surely are doing somersaults in their graves.

The nation’s federal judiciary has become a third political branch of government, not a branch intended only to determine the constitutionality of laws enacted by Congress and signed by the president.

Democratic senators have signed a petition that aims to stop “judge shopping” by conservative activists seeking judges who they believe will rule in their favor. Of particular concern is the federal court based in Amarillo and which is presided over by U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, who was nominated for that seat by the 45th POTUS. Kacszmaryk succeeded a judicial legend in the Texas Panhandle, the late Mary Lou Robinson, of whom no one ever complained was being “too political” in her rulings.

Robinson was nominated by President Jimmy Carter in 1980 and served with distinction and high honor. Now comes Kaczmaryk, whom conservatives seek to overturn policies enacted by Democratic and progressive members of Congress and presidents.

Schumer, McConnell introduce judge shopping bills | The Texas Tribune

“As I have said before, the problem with venue shopping is not a judge in North Texas,” Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell said from the Senate floor. “It’s a national problem driven by the ability of single judges everywhere to grant injunctions that are national in scope.”

The founders couldn’t possibly have envisioned this kind of mess developing within a judicial system they created.

national news

Senators exhibit wear and tear

Recent episodes involving two prominent U.S. senators have thrust me into a serious quandary.

I do not believe in term limits for members of Congress, but I do believe that those members should exercise proper judgment when it becomes apparent — if not obvious — that they are unable to fulfill all the complicated aspects of their job.

Perhaps you have seen the recent video of Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell freezing, unable to answer a question about his re-election plans in 2026. It is the second such episode we have seen of the Kentucky senator in recent weeks.

Then we have Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California missing several months because she was battling shingles and assorted other ailments. She has returned to her post, but she clearly — according to observers — is nowhere near at the top of her game.

Feinstein 90 years of age; McConnell is 81.

You hear it said in recent times about the need for age limits for senators and House members. Not necessary, any more than slapping term limits on these individuals. Nor is it necessary for the presidency, which does have a two-term limit for anyone elected to that office. I remain somewhat conflicted about whether we need term limits for the presidency.

Over the course of history of our Congress and our presidency we have seen multiple examples of individuals who have stayed in office for far too long. Perhaps the most prominent among them is Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, the senator who served as a Democrat, an independent and a Republican. At the end of his lengthy stint in office, Thurmond was hardly able to communicate, let alone speak cogently about public policy.

There comes a time when all of us should realize when we no longer have the snap required to do our jobs. When you are an elected official representing the interests of millions of other people, such self-awareness becomes even more critical. You must have all your faculties and must be in full command of your wits to make decisions based on (a) your own principles or (b) the will of those you represent.

It looks to me that Sens. McConnell and Feinstein — two of the Senate’s heaviest hitters — are no longer able to fulfill the obligations of their high offices.

Therein lies a stern — but essential — lesson for people in public life at all levels of government.

national news

Way to go, Mitch

Let’s just call him Mitch the Obstructor, the guy who never — not ever! — seems to back a Democratically inspired notion that well could produce astonishing results for the nation.

But there’s Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell saying that a Democratic deal hammered out by maverick Democrat Joe Manchin and Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer is a job killer. It’s a “socialist” program. It’s just going to sink the nation faster than that iceberg did to the Titanic.

He cannot back it under any circumstance.

It’s a $430 billion bill that would produce cleaner air, would reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, would be paid for with modest tax increases on the richest Americans. Yet to hear McConnell bellow about his opposition, it’s the worst thing to come down the pike since President Nixon’s wage and price controls of the 1970s. Oh, wait, Nixon was a Republican, so I guess that made it OK.

Manchin has performed a fairly stunning reversal on this matter. He recently declared his opposition to President Biden’s Build Back Better idea, which everyone at the time thought doomed the notion for good.

Now he comes around. Again! I cannot keep up with the West Virginian who seems to enjoy the role of senator with outsized influence.

He and Schumer and the POTUS, though, now must deal with Mitch the Obstructor. I am hoping they can put Mitch in his place … presumably under something from he cannot re-emerge.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

DC riot

If this isn’t ‘criminal’ …

A good friend of mine posted this little item that I feel compelled to share on this blog … with a brief comment.

I would change one word: “Impeachable” could become “criminal” as it relates to what Donald J. Trump (allegedly) did on 1/6 while the traitorous mob of insurrectionists was assaulting the Capitol Building and seeking to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

You remember that, right? Joe Biden won. Donald Trump lost. Except that Trump declared war on our democratic system of government and sought to block the certification of the 2020 election result.

Mitch McConnell was stirred with righteous anger at Trump’s conduct on 1/6. Then he voted against convicting Trump after he had been impeached for the second time by the House of Representatives.

Those days are gone. We now are facing possible criminal referrals from the House select committee that is examining the why and wherefore regarding the 1/6 insurrection.

If I were King of the World, I would recommend that the select panel recommend a Justice Department indictment of The Donald. But … that’s for others to decide.

The aggravating aspect of McConnell’s once-righteous rage at Trump is that he continues to suck up to the former POTUS, saying that if Trump is the GOP presidential nominee in 2024 (a thought that makes me wretch) that he would “support” his bid for the presidency.

So, there you have it. The Senate GOP leader who once thought the then-president committed an impeachable offense is now fit to serve yet again as the nation’s head of state.

Some things just defy logic.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

legal news

Mitch says ‘no’ on KBJ

Let’s put Mitch McConnell’s announcement today that he would vote “no” on Ketanji Brown Jackson’s nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court into some perspective. So, bear with me for a moment.

The Senate Republican leader can’t support Judge Jackson because she declined to say whether she supports progressives’ call to expand the high court from nine members to, say, 15. McConnell said Judge Jackson should have offered an opinion, even though the jurist erred on the side of remaining impartial or, shall we say, above the battle that surely would erupt if such a notion were to gather momentum.

Let’s examine briefly McConnell’s recent political history, too.

This man obstructed President Barack Obama’s effort to name a successor to Justice Antonin Scalia, who died suddenly in early 2016. McConnell said that because a presidential election would occur 10 months later, we needed to wait to see which candidate would win and then allow that person to make the nomination. Obama selected Judge Merrick Garland, but Garland never got a hearing … thanks to McConnell’s obstruction and raw political power grab.

McConnell also blamed Donald J. Trump for the insurrection that erupted on 1/6. He said in a Senate speech that The Donald was “singularly” responsible for “provoking” the riot that sought to overturn the result of the 2020 presidential election, which Trump lost! Then he voted against convicting The Donald on the impeachment article that came from the House as a direct result of the riot that McConnell said Trump instigated. Go figure.

So, for this obstructionist and coward to offer a negative critique of a stellar jurist such as Ketanji Brown Jackson is simply, to be candid, not credible.

He sickens me.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

DC riot, national news, political news

Mitch uses the ‘I-word’

How about that Mitch McConnell, invoking what I will call the “I-word” in describing what took place on 1/6? He has called it a “violent insurrection” that Donald Trump incited with his fiery “take-back-the-government” rhetoric.

Well … the Senate Republican leader has found his long-lost voice.

He has rebuked the Republican National Committee for censuring two GOP House members — Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois — for serving on the select committee examining the 1/6 riot.

McConnell rebukes RNC, calls Jan. 6 ‘violent insurrection’ (msn.com)

“It was a violent insurrection for the purpose of trying to prevent the peaceful transfer of power after a legitimately certified election from one administration to the next,” McConnell said Tuesday.  Yes, i damn sure was all of that, Sen. McConnell.

You said so in an eloquent Senate floor speech a few weeks after the riot. Then you back away from all of that. You continued to support Donald Trump’s position as the leader of the GOP. Now, though, Trump has insulted McConnell perhaps once or twice too often.

I want McConnell to stand firm in his description of what took place and why it occurred. A mob of traitors stormed the Capitol Building seeking to overturn a fair election; they did so at the urging of Donald Trump.

The ex-Liar in Chief needs to be held accountable. The men and women charged with acting violently need to be prosecuted.

What’s more, Mitch McConnell and other Republican politicians need to stand for the rule of law.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Uncategorized

I hear ya, Joe

Mr. President, allow me to say that I happen to agree with you about one aspect of the presidency that has dragged your approval rating down among Americans across the land.

I also agree that I — along with others of us — didn’t anticipate the stubborn refusal of Republican members of Congress to work with you for the common good of all of us. I mean, so help me, I actually thought that your experience as a senator and your eight years as vice president would have bought you some good will once you took over the presidency from the fraudulent imposter who occupied the office for the four previous years.

I have seen the video of Republicans and Democrats singing your praises in the Senate near the end of your term as VP. For God’s sake, even Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell said it was a pleasure to work with you. What’s he doing now? He is standing in the way of damn near everything you are trying to do.

The moron you succeeded keeps hurling epithets at McConnell, but the senator won’t accept the notion that POTUS No. 45 is unfit for office and must be derailed in his attempt to influence the political discussion going forward.

Then again, Mitch isn’t the worst of ’em. The idiot brigade among the GOP congressional caucus is being led by the likes of Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas, Josh Hawley of Missouri and Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Matt Gaetz of Florida. I could go on, Mr. President, but you get my drift, right?

I am going to stand with you, sir. I voted for you, and I am proud of my support for the agenda you are pitching. Be strong, Mr. President.

It well might be that the obstructionists in Congress will realize they are harming their own base. As you know, these tactics have this way of exacting revenge on those who enact them.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com