national news

Trump exit playing true to form

(Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I suppose you could say that Donald Trump’s tortured exit from the political stage is what many of us thought might occur.

No, I am not saying folks would have predicted each excruciating step by step. However, Trump’s non-political background never prepared him for the kind of defeat he would suffer on Election Day 2020 and he was ill-prepared to accept the fate that others had handed him.

He came of age and entered the business world on the back of a multimillion-dollar stake his rich father bequeathed him. He formed his own company. Trump called his own shots. He took no guff from those who worked for him. He sought no favor from those with whom he worked. Nor did Trump — by his own admission — seek forgiveness for any mistakes he made along the way.

His entire adult life was geared toward a single goal: self enrichment and aggrandizement. Trump’s ego would not allow him to think of others, nor to invest any of the wealth he acquired in the communities that gave it to him.

Then, after lying his way to fame and fortune, he decided to seek the first and only public office ever in his life: the presidency. Wouldn’t you know it? The reality TV celebrity won!

Now he’s been tossed out. The public for whom he worked and to whom he was responsible has given him the heave-ho. Hit the road, Donald, and don’t let the door hit you in your ample a** on the way out of the White House.

Donald Trump’s petulance has been mind-blowing. The dangerous game of denigration is frightening in the extreme as he rants and riffs on alleged corruption in an electoral system he took an oath to defend and protect has been astonishing in the extreme.

Does any of this, at its deepest level, surprise anyone? If it does, it certainly shouldn’t be a surprise.

He soon will be replaced by a man who has spent his adult life in public service. Joe Biden isn’t the perfect man to be elected president. However, the president-elect — given what we have endured for the past four years — is damn close to the ideal antidote to the selfishness, the narcissism, the corruption and the grifting we have seen from Donald Trump and those closest to him.

Dare I say, too: Some of us saw it — or something like it — coming a long time ago.

national news

Rudy tests positive for COVID … why don’t I feel badly?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

The man once known as America’s Mayor but who has become a laughingstock lawyer as Donald Trump concocts wild theories about election fraud has tested positive for the COVID-19 virus.

I am ashamed to admit this: Why don’t I feel badly that Rudy Giuliani has become infected? I suppose at one level I don’t want him to get deathly ill and suffer in agony. However, the man who stood tall in the wake of 9/11 as mayor of New York has devolved into a cartoon character, a buffoon, a Bozo the Clown as he mounts ridiculous arguments that seek to persuade us that voter fraud propelled Joe Biden to the presidency over Donald Trump.

The clown show goes on. Only 40-something days to go.

national news

Biden feeling the heat

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

President-elect Biden is getting pulled in multiple directions by multiple political interests.

It gives me cause for concern.

Joe Biden is a center-left Democrat. I believe that’s how he portrayed himself. He moderates his views on occasion, seeking compromise when possible with politicians with differing views. So, when I hear that progressives want a more progressive Cabinet than what they’re getting to date, I am left to wonder: What do they expect from a man who campaigned as a moderate?

The president-elect is getting pressure from African-American interests, from Latinos, from Asian-Americans. They, too, want more people who look like them at the highest levels of government.

I’ve declared already that I am a “good government progressive.” One of the ways I determine “good government” is whether we are being served by the best possible individuals. Does their ethnic or  racial background rise to the level of critical importance? Well, I guess not. Then again, I am a white male, grandson of immigrants. I don’t fit into any particular racial or ethnic minority … unless you include Greeks in that category.

The president-elect has pledged to craft a government team that resembles the country he was elected to govern. I believe so far he is on the way to keeping that pledge. He has a long way to go. I hope he can resist the temptation to buckle under to every ethnic, racial or socio-economic group that tugs at him.

I am keeping faith with the promise he brings to repair the damage done by his predecessor.

national news

Trump keeps making news

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Just to be clear, I intend fully to move on, way past Donald Trump and am looking forward to offering comment, perspective and some context on Joe Biden’s presidency.

If only Donald Trump would stop making news! Dadgummit to hell anyway!

Trump ventured to Valdosta, Ga., on Saturday ostensibly to promote the candidacies of Republican U.S. Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue. What does Trump do? He goes off on a lengthy grievance-filled riff about the alleged “theft” of the presidential election.

He lied his a** off yet again, claiming voter fraud where none exists. He undermined the democratic process in a state governed by fellow Republicans. The Whiner in Chief asked GOP Gov. Brian Kemp to call a special legislative session to demand the Georgia legislature toss out the results of the statewide total that went to President-elect Biden.

What in the name of governmental overreach is Trump trying to do? He cannot dictate to governors how to conduct state business.

To his (diminished) credit, Kemp has pushed back on Trump’s demand. Trump has said he is “ashamed” to have endorsed Kemp in his run for governor in 2018.

My goodness. The Imbecile in Chief is making an unmitigated, unvarnished, unbalanced, unstable, unhinged a** of himself.

I want to move on. Really and truly. I do. Donald John Trump won’t release me.

national news

Trump may invoke his M.O. and actually ‘concede,’ sort of

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Let’s flash back for a moment.

Donald Trump spent about five years fomenting the lie that Barack Obama was born overseas and was not a U.S. citizen, meaning he couldn’t run for president of the United States. It was a blatantly racist attack on someone who was born in Hawaii to an American woman; thus, he was a citizen by birth.

Then came a one-sentence admission in 2016 that Obama “is a U.S. citizen.” That was it. End of discussion, more or less. Trump demonstrated his shameless modus operandi.

Now he is continuing to challenge the results of an election he clearly lost to President-elect Joe Biden. He is ranting. He is riffing. He is bitching about all the grievances over alleged “corruption” in the electoral process which he continues to label as “rigged.”

Hmm. How might this play out? Here’s a thought.

The Electoral College is meeting in about nine days to certify Joe Biden’s victory. He has accrued 306 electoral votes; he needs just 270 of them.

When the Electoral College certifies Biden’s victory, I believe it is entirely possible that Trump could issue a terse statement that declares Biden is the duly elected president of the United States. He won’t concede in the traditional sense.

There likely won’t be a phone call to the winner, congratulating him and pledging his support for the remainder of the time he is president. He won’t say a word about the rigorous campaign that Biden waged.

He’ll just say that Biden won. Then he’ll be done.

Trump might not show up for President Biden’s inaugural. Indeed, I do not expect him to be there. Trump will get on Air Force One and jet off to Mar-a-Lago to play some golf and schmooze with his cronies.

Is that out of the question? I don’t think so. Nothing this guy Trump does should surprise anyone on Earth.

Just be gone … Donald.

national news

Biden lead piles up

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Not that anyone is keeping score — other than me — but here’s a bit of election trivia for you to ponder.

President-elect Biden’s actual vote margin over Donald Trump has surpassed 7 million ballots, making this the most decisive election victory since 2008, when Barack Obama defeated the late John McCain by nearly 10 million votes.

I understand a couple of realities about this vote margin. One is that it doesn’t matter about who gets elected, since the Electoral College makes that call. Oh, wait! President-elect Biden has 306 electoral votes; he only needed 270 to win the presidency.

Four years ago, Trump rolled up the same number of electoral votes that Biden did and he called his win over Hillary Clinton in 2016 a “landslide.” This time he alleges Biden’s win is the result of a “rigged election.” What utter horsesh**!

Sigh! Trump went to Georgia tonight to keep making his contemptuous complaint about fraud and other other idiocy about how he “won” the Georgia vote.

Dave Leip’s Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections (uselectionatlas.org)

The other reality is that of the 7 million vote majority that Trump rang up, more than 5 million ballots came from California. Still, let’s remember that this was a national election. Still, let’s be prepared to hear the claptrap from the Trumpster toadies that will seek to denigrate the scope of Joe Biden’s victory.

Trump lost the election … bigly.

national news

DACA recipients get a boost from judge

(Photo by David McNew/Getty Images)exe

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Hundreds of thousands of U.S. residents have gotten a welcome boost from a federal judge who has informed the Homeland Security department to start accepting applications to become involved in a program established during the Obama administration.

These residents are those who came here illegally as children, brought to the United States by their parents. They’re called “Dreamers,” and the Obama administration shielded them from deportation through the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals act. President Obama established DACA by executive order; Donald Trump rescinded that order, seeking to end the DACA initiative.

Federal Judge Nicholas Garaufis’ ruling restores DACA for those Dreamers, giving them a chance to seek citizenship or legal resident status.

Indeed, as I’ve noted already on this blog, DACA recipients need some compassion from the U.S. government. Many of them came here as children, some as toddlers or infants. They know no other country than the United States. They have no connection to their country of birth. The Trump administration sought to round them up and send them packing to their birth country, which to my way of thinking is absolutely cruel in the extreme.

President-elect Biden is vowing immigration reform legislation in his first 100 days in office. It must include a permanent restoration of DACA for those who are willing to do what they must to become citizens or legal residents.

They have been given another reprieve from a federal judge to start that process once again.

As CNN.com reported: “Immigrant youth have resisted this cruel administration’s continuous attacks, and once more we have won,” said Johana Larios. “Now, first-time applicants like me will be able to have access to the DACA program and current recipients will be able to breathe a little easier as DACA is restored to its original form. I am now able to look forward to returning to school, and feel safe that I won’t be separated from my community.”

I am hoping for a return to humane immigration policies.

legal news, national news

Replace ‘defund’ with ‘reform’ the police

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I didn’t come up with this theory, but I am going to endorse it.

It goes like this: Democrats didn’t do as well on down-ballot races during the 2020 election because voters might have been alarmed at the slogan “defund the police” that many progressive candidates appeared to support.

Republicans chipped away at Democrats’ majority in the U.S. House and they well might maintain their slim majority in the U.S. Senate if Democrats fail to capture two seats in the Georgia runoff election set for next month.

What was the trigger? Protests erupted around the nation after the hideous death of George Floyd by Minneapolis cops. One of them is charged with murder in Floyd’s death. The protests declared it was time to “defund the police” in communities around the nation.

I am quite unsettled by that notion. I realize now that “defunding” police departments really didn’t mean disbanding municipal or county police agencies. Efforts took root in many cities to re-allocate police money to community services.

I am much more comfortable with the idea that we need to “reform” police practices in many communities, make the cops more sensitive to how others perceive them when they arrest minority residents and how they treat them once they are in custody.

Former President Barack Obama, who has re-entered the political arena with his full-throated support of President-elect Biden, spoke to this police issue the other day. He expressed concern about the “defund” slogan and whether too many Americans took it literally.

Communities need police protection the way they need fire protection, or water service, or having their garbage picked up. I am unaware of any serious American who favors lawlessness on our streets.

Am I frightened by the conduct of officers who react as those cops did in Minneapolis when George Floyd was killed seemingly because he was a black man who committed a misdemeanor offense? Absolutely, I am! I also am frightened by other reports in other communities of police officers shooting African-Americans who weren’t resisting arrest, or were running away from officers.

Defunding police departments, though, is not the answer … even in the form it is actually taking. We should change the discussion topic to “reform the police,” which is where I hope President Biden can take this discussion as we move it forward.

medical news

Yes, to Dr. Fauci staying on the job

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Imagine that you’re the nation’s — if not the world’s — leading infectious disease doctor and you’ve been “advising” a president of the United States who dismisses your advice and calls you an “idiot.”

Then the president loses his re-election effort and you get a call from the fellow who beat him, the guy who pledged throughout his successful campaign that he would “rely on the science” to help set a course to battle a killer pandemic. He new president wants to you stay on as his “chief science adviser.”

What do you do? Well, you do what Dr. Anthony Fauci did when President-elect Joe Biden asked him to stay on. You say “yes” on the spot, which the president-elect said was Dr. Fauci’s response.

Uh, Mr. President-elect, you can count me as one American who is glad to know that you’re going to keep Anthony Fauci nearby to offer his best, learned advice on how to handle this pandemic. Joe Biden will become the eighth president for whom Fauci has worked.

All of them, Democrat and Republican alike — except for Donald J. Trump — have heeded his advice and plotted courses of action to battle prior medical emergencies based on what he has told them.

As for The Donald, his description of the Ivy League-educated physician and scientist as an “idiot” tells me all I need to know about the numbskull approach Trump has taken to the pandemic response.

national news

Now it’s the AG in the crosshairs?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Listen to the chatter out there.

We hear now that Donald Trump is mad as hell at U.S. Attorney General William Barr. Why? Well … because Barr — who’s been Trump’s water boy for the length of his tenure as AG — has decided to, um, tell the truth about Trump’s assertion of “widespread voter fraud” in the 2020 election.

Barr said he can find no evidence of such fraud. Nothing to affect the outcome of the election. Not even a little bit of fraud. Yes, the Justice Department probe into Trump’s wild accusations have revealed that they are, uh, just wild accusations.

Trump won’t rule out firing Barr just 46 days until the end of his administration. Hmm. I wish I could say it matters now. It doesn’t. Barr has done enough damage to the rule of law already, such as when he misrepresented former special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on the Russia collusion investigation he conducted prior to Donald Trump’s impeachment by the House of Representatives. Remember that one? It forced Mueller to issue a statement rebuking Barr’s false narrative of what the report contained.

At this point, it doesn’t matter. Other than firing Barr would reveal the depths of Donald Trump’s narcissism.

Hurry up, Jan. 20. The nation awaits a new president who can restore dignity to this office.

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