Tag Archives: Mitt Romney

‘More to life than … politics’

Mitt Romney wasn’t speaking to me in real time when he told a black-tie crowd in 2012 that “There’s more to life than … politics.”

The Republican presidential nominee was speaking of his relationship with his opponent in that year’s election, President Barack H. Obama and how their differences in policy didn’t create undue personal animosity.

Well, Romney’s words are speaking loudly and clearly to me now. My wife in the midst of a struggle against a potentially serious illness. Her challenge has become my challenge, too, along with our immediate family. Indeed, this time in our life will test all of us.

However, I am going to take a page from my bride’s playbook, as she is the most resolute person I ever have encountered.

What is the nature of this illness? She underwent surgery this week to remove a growth in her brain. The surgeon submitted samples of the tissue to a pathologist to enable him to “know what to call it.” We are waiting to learn the results.

Her fight consumes us fully. Thus, I have decided to take a break from the normal contents of this blog, which often includes political commentary that contains its customary ration of criticism of pols and their policies.

Why is that? Because I, too, have learned the vivid truth of what Mitt Romney said more than a decade ago.

There truly is “more to life than politics.”

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Now will GOP reassess itself?

Mitt Romney’s loss to President Obama in the 2012 presidential election prompted the Republican Party to determine it needed a thorough examination of its future.

The party pledged to search its soul and look for ways to appeal to more Blacks, Hispanics, suburban women and other demographic groups known to be friendlier to Democrats.

I don’t know what the party came up with, but four years later it nominated a certifiable racist, sexual assailant, pathological liar as its presidential candidate. Donald Trump then won the 2016 election. The party since has taken many steps backward from where it was when Romney led the GOP.

I want the Republican Party to reassess its position these days as much as Republicans do … if only for different reasons.

I remain committed (more or less) to Democratic Party principles. I also want a return to honest debate pitting philosophies against each other. Today’s Republican Party is too enamored with The Big Lie, with MAGA demagoguery and with fealty to Donald Trump.

Furthermore, I want to state for the record once again that Trump entered politics in 2016 without spending a moment of his disgusting life working to improve people’s lives. Even after serving a term as president, public service remains an unknown concept to Trump.

I would welcome a return to honest and vigorous debate. I relish a good fight between politicians with serious policy disagreements. We aren’t getting that quality of discourse now. Instead, as we just witnessed, we saw a stable of Republicans defeated because they had earned the anointment of the twice-impeached former POTUS, who backed them because they swilled the Big Lie Kool-Aid.

We can do better than that.

Mitt Romney’s narrow loss a decade ago should have taught Republicans a valuable lesson. It didn’t. Maybe now the GOP will heed the message that voters are telling them.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

There’s no talking to them

I am going to wave a white flag of surrender. I give up. I no longer can — nor will I — seek to persuade the Donald Trump cabal of cultists that they are wrong in clinging to their man’s world view … whatever the hell it is!

Truth be told, I made that decision some time ago. I don’t think I have declared my intention publicly, out loud, for all the world to hear.

I have a few critics of this blog who weigh in when I have something critical to say about their hero. As a general rule, I don’t engage them in debate.

Which brings me to my point: which is that there is no point in arguing with someone whose mind is made up, who does not listen or comprehend what I know to be the truth about their guy.

He is, as Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah — a fellow Republican — said in 2016 a “phony” and a “fraud.” He cannot tell the truth. However, the sad reality is that truth-telling doesn’t matter to the cult cabal. They buy into his lies, they repeat them and then dare the rest of us to challenge them. I can challenge the lies, but I cannot challenge the purveyors of the falsehoods.

You’ve heard the saying — or something like it — that warns against trying to talk sense into someone who is blind to any possibility that their guy suffers a fatal flaw. That, in my view, sums up the Trump cabal.

I know what you might be thinking: If I am going to accuse the Trumpkins of being blind to the truth, am I as equally blind to the views expressed on the other side of the great divide?

Not a chance. They are wrong.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Be careful, Democrats

“It’s not illegal but it sure is stupid. Be careful what you wish for. You may select somebody who actually wins and then you hurt the country as well as your own party.”

Who said that? None other than U.S. Sen. Mitt Romney, a Utah Republican and one of the few GOP senators to (a) declare that Donald Trump is a “phony” and a “fraud” and (b) congratulate Joe Biden on his election as president in 2020.

Here we are, two years later, and the chatter is all over the place about Democrats reportedly boosting Trumpkin candidates’ chances for nomination in their respective state primaries. Why? Because they suspect that general-election voters will reject them.

Not … necessarily, as Mitt is warning Democrats.

Mitt Romney says Democratic efforts to boost Trump-allied GOP election deniers is a ‘stupid’ approach: ‘Be careful what you wish for’ (msn.com)

I can recall similar stories of electoral tomfoolery occurring in 1980 when Republicans were deciding whether to nominate a far-right former California governor for president. Democrats crossed over to vote for Ronald Reagan in GOP primaries, believing he would be the weakest candidate to run against Democratic President Jimmy Carter.

It, um, didn’t work out.

Reagan won the presidency in a historic landslide in November 1980.

I don’t know how one should stop the MAGA crowd/Trump cultist/far-right-wing nut cases. It seems the more negativity that comes out against their guru — the former president — the more energized they become.

These individuals are nuttier than a Snickers Bar.

I believe primary voters in these remaining states should take Mitt Romney’s advice to heart. Texans no longer should worry about that counsel, as our primary is over and, yep, Republicans here nominated their share of Trump Cult kooks.

We long ago entered a sort of electoral twilight zone with the entry of Donald J. Trump into the world of politics.

I believe Democrats should take Sen. Romney’s advice seriously.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

‘Mitt’ becomes latest GOP four-letter word

I never thought this day would come, when members of the Republican Party – those who have swilled the snake oil peddled by a fraud – would turn on one of the party’s truest believers and use his name as a cudgel to beat their opponents bloody.

They would call them “Mitt Romney Republicans.”

Believe this or not, but the Donald Trump cultists are now using Sen. Mitt Romney’s name as an epithet. Yeah, that Mitt Romney, the junior senator from Utah, the 2012 GOP nominee for president who came quite close to defeating President Obama, the fellow who saved the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City and the son of a successful governor of Michigan.

How in the world did Mitt earn the title of becoming a four-letter word in today’s GOP politics?

He voted to convict Donald Trump during the two impeachment trials that Trump faced during his term in office. That’s it! He sided with the rule of law on both occasions. He delivered an impassioned and emotional floor speech in the Senate prior to announcing his decision to vote to convict Trump during the initial impeachment trial, which came after the House impeached Trump for soliciting a political favor from the president of Ukraine in that so-called “perfect phone call.”

Mitt became the sole Republican senator in that first trial to seek a conviction. The second impeachment trial – caused by Trump’s inciting of the 1/6 insurrection – saw nine more GOP senators join Mitt Romney in voting to convict Trump.

All of this speaks so badly of a once-great political party, that its rabid followers of the ex-Narcissist in Chief would stoop so low as to label a one-time ideal Republican politician a pariah and a man worthy of political scorn among his fellow conservatives.

Hey, I didn’t vote for Sen. Romney when he ran against President Obama in 2012. However, my respect for him only has grown as he has remained loyal – along with a few of his GOP congressional colleagues – to the oath they took when they began their terms. It was an oath to protect the Constitution and to follow the law.

What in the name of fealty to the founders’ intent is wrong with that? Someone has to explain it to me.

Johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I apologize, Mitt

Mitt Romney appears to have earned a worldwide apology from those of us who once scoffed at a notion he put forth while he was running for president of the United States in 2012.

A decade ago, the junior U.S. senator from Utah said Russia posed the “greatest geopolitical threat” to the United States. President Barack Obama led the snickering and tittering — and the ridicule — of the Republican presidential nominee’s assertion. I joined in the laughter.

Well, guess what. It turns out Romney was correct.

Russia has launched an unprovoked war with Ukraine, helping plunge the world into utter chaos.

To be clear, I don’t recall that Romney foresaw what the world is witnessing when he made those Russia remarks during the heat of a presidential campaign. He offered a statement that has borne much more truth than we imagined in the moment a decade ago.

Now the senator is saying that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization ought to consider responding militarily if Russia uses tactical nuclear weapons against Ukraine. A full-throated NATO response would pulverize Russia, Romney said.

Am I going to laugh now at such a suggestion coming from Sen. Mitt Romney? Hardly.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Mitt was right about Russia

My sense of fair play compels me to offer an apology to 2012 Republican Party presidential nominee Mitt Romney, who once made a declaration that drew scorn from those of us who opposed his election to the presidency.

Romney, now the junior U.S. senator from Utah, declared during that campaign that Russia posed “the greatest geopolitical threat” to the United States. Do you recall the howls of derision from Democrats and others on the left? Why, how could Romney be so, um, naive? So out of touch? So, so … wrong?

Greater threats seemed at the time to lie in places like the Middle East, among terrorist groups intent on destroying “the Great Satan.” So, we laughed off Mitt Romney’s absurd notion about Russia.

Now, though, he seems prescient. Russia has emerged as a profound threat to the entire world. Certainly to neighboring countries, such as, oh, Ukraine and Belarus. And Georgia. And the Baltic States.

The Russians are engaging in cyber warfare against the rest of the world. They interfered in our 2016 presidential election, sought to do it again in 2020. They might try yet again in 2024.

Donald Trump, the president who received help from the Russians in ’16, stood next to Russian killer Vladimir Putin and endorsed his denial that the Russian interfered in our election. He and Putin became BFFs. Putin played Trump like a fiddle.

Mitt was right about Russia. I won’t cry myself to sleep over being wrong in 2012. I just want to acknowledge that Romney told us the truth when he ran for POTUS but a lot of us weren’t yet ready to hear it.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

RNC takes aim at wrong target

The Republican National Committee’s censure of two stalwart members of its own party is a profound demonstration of stupidity that transcends mere ignorance.

The RNC has scolded U.S. Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger because — and this is remarkable in its idiocy — for serving on a House committee that seeks to get to the truth behind the 1/6 insurrection.

Yes, Cheney and Kinzinger — two conservative members of a once-proud party — have placed their loyalty to the rule of law over any phony loyalty to an individual, namely Donald J. Trump … who incited the traitors to riot on 1/6.

So, because they have been faithful to their oath of office — the same oath that other members of Congress and the president take — they are being punished. They have been cast aside. They have been they are no longer welcome as part of the Republican delegation.

This is unbelievable!

RNC censures Cheney, Kinzinger for serving on Jan. 6 panel – Daily News

Where is the scorn that should be heaped on the rioters? RNC chairwoman Ronna McDaniel instead has called their actions that horrible day as a demonstration of “legitimate political discourse.” She didn’t separate anyone’s behavior on that day; she said the entire event was OK because it constituted a protest against the government. What utter bullsh**!

“If the price of being willing to tell the truth and get to the bottom of what happened on January 6 and make sure that those who are responsible are held accountable is a censure, then I am absolutely going to continue to stand up for what I knew was right,” Cheney said.

She called the censure a “sad day for the party of Lincoln.” Do ya think?

To be fair, some GOP officeholders, such as 2012 Republican presidential nominee Sen. Mitt Romney, have criticized the censure. “Shame falls on a party that would censure persons of conscience, who seek truth in the face of vitriol. Honor attaches to Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger for seeking truth even when doing so comes at great personal cost,” Romney said in a tweet.

If Cheney and Kinzinger deserve honor, then the RNC deserves nothing but scorn and shame for its hideous action and virtual endorsement of the frontal assault on our democratic form of government.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

These are insane times

The craziness of the current political climate is manifesting itself daily. Everywhere I look I see evidence of families being torn apart. Of friendships being lost. Of professional relationships being severed.

Why? Because of politics.

We have the politics of the pandemic. The politics of war and peace. The politics of abortion. The politics of voting rights.

I see evidence of all this playing out near and far from our home in North Texas. I hear about extended family members gnashing their teeth over whether to get vaccinated against the virus that is killing Americans to this very day. I hear about other family members not speaking to each other. Again, it has to do with vaccines.

What the hell … ?

I had more than a glimmer of hope that we could return to some semblance of normal disagreement when the 45th POTUS departed the White House for the final time this past January. Silly me. It ain’t happening … at least not yet.

I heard someone say the other day that even though the 45th POTUS is gone, the political cult he inspires remains in play. I believe POTUS 45 will stay gone. I also fear the cult that bears his name will continue to be a force in driving the political dialogue long after he has, um … flown away. 

It will show itself in damaged relationships. Whether it’s about vaccines, voting rights, abortion or any combination of hot-button issues, we are seeing a decay in the political climate.

It is stinky rotten and it is nowhere near the kind of world I want to leave for my sons or their families.

A former Republican presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, said near the end of the 2012 campaign that “there’s more to life than politics.” Indeed. He was right. If only we could rediscover the big, beautiful world on which we should be building our relationships.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

GOP has gone to hell

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

There’s no nice way to say it, so I’ll just fire away.

The Republican Party has gone head first into the shi**er. It’s gone to hell. It no longer represents anything other than fealty to a hate- and fear-monger, an ignorant buffoon who had no business being elected POTUS.

Donald Trump’s vise grip on the once-great political party is shameful in the extreme.

The party has devolved into an organization that now stands and cheers for an alleged sex trafficker in Rep. Matt Gaetz, embraces the lunacy of QAnon queen and conspiracy theorist Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene … and then boos and jeers actual Republicans such as Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah and Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming.

The House Republican leadership is set to boot Cheney out of her GOP caucus chairmanship. The party rank-and-file has turned its back on the 2012 GOP presidential nominee, Romney. What do these two politicians have in common? They voted to impeach and convict Donald Trump of inciting the Jan. 6 insurrection on Capitol Hill.

And so the party now slobbers all over Donald Trump’s shoes and demands that other politicians do the same.

What in the name of governance happened to this group of individuals? They have been taken hostage by an imbecile.

Wow! I … am … stunned.