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Time to toughen up

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

This blog is anticipating a bit of an identity crisis.

Readers of High Plains Blogger grew accustomed, I shall presume, that it would be critical of anything the immediate past president would say or do. I get that it might have become too predictable. I won’t apologize, though, for the tone it took while commenting on Donald Trump’s tenure as president.

Now we have a new guy in power. President Biden has planted himself behind the Resolute Desk and has been issuing executive orders left and right, up and down.

I intend to look as critically at Joe Biden as I did at Donald Trump. That does not mean I intend to be as critical of the current president as I was on the former president. It does mean that I will speak critically when the needs arise, when the issues warrant it, when I get a bur under my saddle.

That’s what bloggers ought to do.

I am going to make a vow, which is that I won’t flinch when President Biden makes an error. No one is perfect, correct? I have long believed that humankind contained only one perfect person, but he was crucified because the rest of us are born sinners.

As for the new president, he so far presents a refreshing change from what we have endured over the past four years. He isn’t tweeting his brains out; he isn’t scolding our allies and snuggling with our foes; he has put his staffers on notice, that if they mistreat anyone that he will fire them “on the spot.”

I want him to be fair and to deal forthrightly with Americans. I also want President Biden to retain the conscious belief that he works for us and that voters are the ultimate bosses in determining the direction our government takes.

I intend to keep my eyes and ears open.

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Dr. Fauci: free at last!

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Dr. Anthony Fauci made a declaration of sorts this week when he conducted a briefing to the world about the progress of the federal government’s war against the killer pandemic.

He declared his “liberation” from a presidential administration that didn’t allow him to speak the unvarnished truth about the crisis we are facing. He now answers to the Joe Biden administration, which has declared loudly and forthrightly that it intends to rely on the science to determine its course of action in fighting the disease.

Its point man is actually going to be able to take the point. President Biden asked Fauci to serve as the administration’s senior medical adviser. Fauci accepted the request “on the spot,” according to the president.

This week he offered the latest data on the effects of the virus. He did so knowing that he won’t be challenged or criticized or ridiculed by the president … who now happens to be a private citizen. The new president, Joe Biden, is listening and heeding the advice of the world’s premier infectious disease expert.

Free at last! yes, Dr. Fauci? Millions of us across the land welcome your newfound liberation.

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Delay Senate trial? Sure … why not?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell wants to delay the trial of the disgraced former president until February.

To which I am inclined to say: Sure … whatever.

The former president is out of office. A conviction won’t kick him out. He’s in Florida luxuriating at his posh resort/residence and playing lots of golf.

All he did to merit the second House impeachment was incite an insurrection on Capitol Hill. It happened on the Sixth of January. He egged on a mob, told ’em to walk to Capitol Hill and “take back the government.” That’s what happened and for that the House impeached the Insurrectionist in Chief.

If he’s convicted, and a delay might allow prosecutors to muster up even more evidence than what we all saw happen in real time, the Senate then can cast a simple majority vote to bar him from seeking public office ever again. That is the goal! It’s a noble one.

That is what makes McConnell’s request doable, even for those who want to rush to judgment against the former president.

I am not one of those. I am in no particular hurry to see him convicted. I just want House impeachment trial managers to collect all they evidence they need to get the job done.

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Take politics out of mask-wearing

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Who in the name of medical emergencies would have thought that wearing a mask to prevent the spread of a killer virus would become a political issue?

It did during the current monstrous pandemic.

President Biden signed a slew of executive orders upon taking office. One of them calls for mandatory mask wearing on all federal property. He has asked all Americans to wear a mask for at least the first 100 days of his administration.

Hey, we’re all in at our house.

The mask-wearing protects not just those who wear them but also those who are in contact with the masked individual. He calls mask wearing an act of patriotism. He said Wednesday after taking his oath of office to wear a mask “for God’s sake … do it for the country.”

Too damn many right wingers have seen mask wearing as some sort of panic-button act, that they don’t want the government to dictate how they should behave. What a crock!

The disease has killed more than 400,000 Americans! More of us are going to die. The pandemic is out of control, despite claims to the contrary by President Biden’s predecessor, who on his way out of Dodge referred to the pandemic in the past tense, as if it’s gone. Ridiculous!

Wearing a mask to protect ourselves and others is not the kind of thing to be kicked around like a proverbial political football. If it helps save lives, count me in!

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DACA gets new life

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

President Biden got right to work today.

He pulled out his pen and began signing executive orders that sought to reverse some of the policies enacted by his predecessor. So it begins.

I want to talk briefly about one of the issues that Biden deems critical to the nation: immigration.

He has breathed new life into the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals program nixed by the 45th president. The axing of DACA didn’t quite take hold, as the courts have intervened to keep it alive, albeit on life support. President Biden signed it back into the real world today while sitting in the Oval Office.

DACA, of course, is the program initiated by President Obama that granted a form of temporary amnesty to those U.S. residents who came to this country illegally as children. Their parents brought them here to seek a better life; they did break the law by sneaking into the country illegally, but the children who came with them didn’t deserve to be deported because of something their parents did.

Obama sought to grant them a reprieve from deportation. His successor nixed that notion. Now comes President Biden to revive DACA once again. Moreover, he is planning to introduce a comprehensive immigration reform package that seeks to fast-track citizenship applications for millions of immigrants who want to become U.S. citizens.

We are a nation of immigrants, for criminy sakes! Our founders all came here from across The Pond. The rest is history. We have welcomed immigrants through the many decades since. Then came a president who immediately characterized those seeking to come here from Latin America as “murderers, rapists and drug dealers.”

Do I want to enforce immigration laws? Of course I do! Those who sneak into this country to do harm should be arrested, prosecuted and kicked out. However, those who come here because they happen to be children of those who came here illegally deserve some compassion and understanding.

The U.S. of A. is the only nation they know. DACA seeks to give them a chance to seek permanent legal resident status or citizenship.

President Biden seeks to give them that chance.

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So many takeaways from historic event

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

We have been watching a historic event today in our North Texas home.

My wife and I both have so many thoughts and emotions stemming from the inauguration of President Biden and Vice President Harris. I want to share some of my own.

— I think I am going to follow the president’s lead regarding his predecessor on one point, at least for the short, maybe medium term. Biden did not refer to his predecessor by name during his inaugural speech. I will use the same restraint while commenting on the administration that has faded away. I am tired of writing the name of the 45th president. I am even more weary of his antics, his disrespecting of the office. I want him out of my life.

— President Biden’s everyman approach to life was put on full display. He walked for a brief period from his heavily armored limo to the White House, and true to form, jogged to a rope line to fist-bump a spectator two. Then to see the first lady lay her head on his shoulder as they stood on the front porch of the building where they will live for the next four years was truly touching in a way I haven’t seen since, oh, maybe ever in a first couple.

— News commentators talked openly and repeatedly throughout the day about how the White House staff needed to perform “deep cleaning” of the White House in advance of the Bidens moving. Hmm. I had a serious double entendre  thought when I heard it. Yes, they are deep-cleaning the building because of COVID concerns. However, I cannot stop thinking about the desire to cleanse the place of any evidence of the individual who occupied the Oval Office for the past four years. You know what I mean? Yeah … you do.

— President Biden spoke of democracy’s fragility. It is fragile. It also is durable, sturdy and stronger than any human effort to destroy it. We saw that attempt at destruction two weeks ago.

It’s been a great day to be sure. However, now the hard work begins.

Mr. President and Mme. Vice President, let’s get busy.

 

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Uh, Mr. POTUS … what about the rest of it?

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Donald John Trump’s farewell speech to the nation is an exercise in the error of omission.

I have shared it with you already, but it deserves an additional comment. I listened to Trump’s speech a second time and I am struck by a glaring absence of reality.

If Trump had done all that he claimed to have done during his term in office he would have been re-elected with a 60 percent vote majority and a 40-state Electoral College landslide.

Yes, all those good things happened on his watch. I won’t dispute the economic skyrocket that launched on his watch. Joblessness plummeted, job growth soared, retirement funds exploded, the stock market went crazy.

But … wait! The jobs disappeared when the pandemic struck. Trump’s response to the viral attack? It was hideous. He downplayed its severity. Do you remember that? Businesses closed. Jobs vanished by the millions! Who is responsible for that? The lack of a coherent federal response must be laid directly at Donald Trump’s feet.

Trump didn’t acknowledge any of the mistakes he made in managing that response. He didn’t mention how he contradicted his science advisers’ recommendations. Trump didn’t tell us how he blurted out how ingesting cleansers might cure COVID patients of the virus nor did he mention the ridicule he received from the medical community over that hideous statement in the White House briefing room.

Trump lost the election because Americans had grown tired of his lies, of his incoherence, of the chaos associated with the rapid-fire turnaround in Cabinet officials and high-powered senior staff members. He lost because he couldn’t demonstrate a shred of empathy for a nation grieving over the pandemic.

Trump lost to Joe Biden because he did not know how to govern!

Error of omission? Yep. It was stunning in that farewell speech.

Had those positive items he mentioned today were allowed to stand alone, Donald Trump would have been re-elected in a walk. They cannot stand without challenge from  those of us who know better than to accept anything that Donald Trump says.

Farewell Address of President Donald J. Trump – YouTube

Finally, the man who lost has yet to demonstrate anything resembling class and grace in accepting defeat. A man’s man would extend his good wishes to the individual who defeated him … and would be man enough to say his name.

Donald Trump showed us once again — I hope for the final time — that he is a cowardly charlatan.

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Farewell and good riddance!

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I will present to you a link that believe you should watch.

It is of Donald John Trump bidding us farewell as he prepares to leave Washington, D.C. His time as president of the United States is about over.

He speaks of the “triumphs” he scored during the past four years.

I’ll insist only that you watch it and I will just get out of the way. Spoiler alert: You won’t hear one name mentioned during his soliloquy … Joe Biden.

Farewell Address of President Donald J. Trump – YouTube

The farewell address makes a passing mention of the suffering from the pandemic and of the riot that Trump incited. Contrition? Personal responsibility? An apology for mistakes?

It’s all MIA.

Goodbye, Mr. President. Good riddance!

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Hoping for a honeymoon

(AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Donald John Trump didn’t get one when he became president.

My hope is that Trump’s successor, Joseph R. Biden Jr., is able to reap a benefit usually bestowed to shiny new presidents of the United States: a honeymoon period with Congress and with the public.

To be sure, President Biden will take office after arguably the bitterest, angriest and contention-filled election in U.S. history. He ran against a relentless liar to then, after losing the election, fomented the Big Lie — that the election wasn’t free and fair, that it was “rigged” by “widespread vote fraud.”

The Big Lie resulted in what occurred on the Sixth of January, the attack on our nation’s Capitol Building by terrorists egged on by Trump, who now awaits a trial in the Senate after the House impeached him a second time, this time on a charge of incitement of insurrection.

I know what you’re thinking: That is hardly a backdrop conducive to a honeymoon period for a new president.

I am going to remain hopeful nonetheless.

Joe Biden inherits a government in crisis. He will speak to us Wednesday about unification, about healing, about restoring our national soul. Yes, we have a killer pandemic that has killed 400,000 Americans. Our economy is in free fall. Our nation continues to struggle with deep divides among the races that comprise our diverse population.

Is a honeymoon even possible? I believe so. It could commence with an inaugural speech that tries to tamp down the fiery rhetoric that exploded after the election and culminated in the riot that sought to overturn the democratic process. President Biden’s success in seeking that unity will depend in large part on the receptiveness of Republicans, a majority of whom swallowed Trump’s Big Lie about the integrity of the election; tragically, many of those GOP Big Lie believers serve in Congress.

A new era is about to dawn over a capital still reeling from the terrorist onslaught. May it produce at least a glimmer of a honeymoon period with a new executive branch team working with the legislative branch in searching for a way out of the mess the predecessors left behind.

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The terrorists prayed? To whom?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Now we see video of the Capitol Hill terrorist mob “praying,” I presume, to  while they are ransacking the Senate and House chambers … and while they are seeking to kill — reportedly — the speaker of the House and the vice president of the United States.

Wow, man. That is as rich as it gets.

I’ve already commented on how these perverts are every bit as heinous as the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11. Now we see video of them offering prayers.

Are these Christians? If they are, do they read the same Bible I have read since I was a little boy?

I am struggling to recall where I have read in either the Old or New Testaments where it’s OK to storm onto public property and seek to do physical harm to our elected officials.

It’s fashionable at times like this to ask: What would Jesus do?

Certainly nothing approaching what we saw unfold on Capitol Hill.