Category Archives: national news

national news

Biden nails the SOTU

I will not apologize to anyone about my partisan leaning; I merely will acknowledge what should be clear to anyone who reads this blog, which is that I support President Joe Biden’s agenda as he seeks to bring the nation back from the mess he inherited when he took office in January 2021.

Tonight, Joe Biden declared after ticking off a number of bipartisan agenda items that should receive universal support from Congress, that the “state of our Union is strong” because of Americans who stood against the ravages of deadly illness and are standing tall against the desires of a desperate foreign despot.

President Biden isn’t known as a sparkling orator, but tonight — in my view — he might have reset the office he occupies.

He appealed to Republicans sitting in front of him when he hailed the Ukrainian resistance to the Russian invaders; when he spoke to assuring better help from our government to American veterans; when he declared that our lives will no longer be dictated by our response to a pandemic.

He laid all of this out in an hour-long State of the Union speech and then delivered what I expected would be the punch line, that our Union is “strong.” It remains strong despite our challenges, despite the crises we are battling.

I was delighted that he spoke to our better angels and chose to steer clear of the political divisions of which we all are familiar. No mention of the 1/6 insurrection, no mention of The Big Lie. If I were a GOP congressional leader, I would congratulate and thank the president for staying on the high road. But … that’s just me.

To be clear, it needs to be said that GOP politicians sat on their hands when the president spoke about tax policy, about infrastructure improvement. I guess you can’t win ’em over on everything.

Still, my support for President Biden is stronger than ever tonight after watching him take command of the world stage and deliver in the most forceful language possible a clear warning to the Russian aggressors that they will pay dearly for their act of violence in Europe.

Accordingly, I concur with the president that the “State of our Union is strong.”

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

International news, national news

Time to come together

The world is reeling as Russian armed forces storm their way toward the capital city of Ukraine. They are meeting ferocious resistance from Ukrainians defending their sovereign nation against the invaders. They have earned the world’s support against the aggressors.

So, what has been the response in the United States? At one level, we see ordinary American citizens marching in unison in support of Ukraine. They fly the Ukrainian flag, wear the blue and yellow colors of that banner.

However, some politicians — namely Republicans in Washington — have chosen to politicize it all. They blame President Biden for Russia’s singular act of aggression. According to the Dallas Morning News editorial published today:

Just as President Joe Biden announced sanctions against Russia, the official Twitter account for U.S. House Republicans posted a tweet. It said: “This is what weakness on the world stage looks like.” And it included a photo of Biden walking away from a podium.

Later in the week, two Texas Republicans — U.S. Rep. Van Taylor and Sen. Ted Cruz — seized the moment to continue that narrative. Both rightly voiced support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and global efforts to save it, but then quickly pivoted to blame Biden for the invasion.

Taylor cites Biden’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan and scuttling of the Keystone XL Pipeline project as examples of the president emboldening Putin. Likewise, Cruz tweeted: “Biden’s weakness, both in general and his surrender on Nord Stream 2, undeniably facilitated Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.” And in another tweet, Cruz said, “America’s adversaries took note of Biden’s weakness and incompetence around the withdrawal from Afghanistan. That disaster alone increased the threats of our rivals attacking our allies ten-fold.”

https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/editorials/2022/02/26/can-we-not-agree-that-putin-is-the-aggressor/

It is disappointing in the extreme for me to read about the conduct of my congressman, Van Taylor, who supposedly prides himself on working with Democrats. He claims credit for being non-partisan when the need arises.

Well, what in the hell does Rep. Taylor need to persuade him that such a need has arisen as the nation seeks a cogent response to Vladimir Putin’s act of aggression?

Ted Cruz? He’s a lost cause!

The time arrived the moment the tanks started rolling across the border into Ukraine for this nation to rally behind the commander in chief’s efforts to respond appropriately to an aggressive act.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

What is the State of our Union?

President Biden is getting ready to deliver a speech that many of us have waited to hear. He will stand before a joint session of Congress and after a few opening remarks and perhaps a quip or two he will tell us about the State of our Union.

He is likely to make a declaration that starts out, “My fellow Americans, the State of our Union is … “

Is it “strong”? Is it “weak”? Is it “troubled”? Is it a mixed bag of all of the above and perhaps even something none of us can quantify?

Were I advising the president, I would urge him to offer a “strong” description of our Union’s current condition. Not because all is well and good. But because I cling to the hope that despite our trouble and anxiety that Americans’ collective strength will see us through it all.

Our political structure is roiling under The Big Lie that too many politicians continue to foster about the 2020 presidential election. Congress is examining whether a former POTUS incited an insurrection against our democratic process; I believe he did, but I am not in a position to make an official declaration.

We’re facing down in real time a serious threat by Russia against Ukraine. Our NATO allies stand ready to defend Ukraine if they deem it necessary.

Our economy, while it is exhibiting tangible strength, continues to struggle with raging inflation.

And yes, the pandemic is waning … at least for now.

President Biden will stand before a Congress divided by suspicion among its members toward each other and by those on one side of the great divide who continue to resist any effort on the president’s part to actually govern responsibly.

We’ll wait for the applause lines and we’ll watch the Democratic half of Congress cheer while Republicans sit on their hands. It will disgust many of us.

The Union’s strength lies in the people who are the real bosses. It isn’t the congressional leaders who seek to guide federal policy while ignoring the will of those they govern.

I don’t know what President Biden will declare about the strength of our nation at the State of the Union speech he will deliver in a few days. I just hope he tells us we are stronger than the forces that seek to divide us and tear at the fabric of our nation’s greatness.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

International news, local news, national news, political news

Rookie pol makes ass of himself

Ronny Jackson is new to this game of politics, but barely a year into his gig as a member of Congress he has established himself as a darling of the far-right wing of the Republican Party, which makes his comments about the Russia-Ukraine war worthy of a brief retort from your friendly blogger.

Jackson, who represents the 13th Congressional District of the Texas Panhandle, said this via Twitter about the invasion that began just a few hours ago:

WHERE IS JOE BIDEN!? Is he even AWAKE right now!? The absence of leadership from this White House is SICKENING! This war should’ve NEVER happened!

Hmm. Wow! There you have the ramblings of a former Navy flag officer, a former physician and a carpetbagger who moved to Amarillo specifically to run for political office. He detests President Biden, who I actually wonder if he gives a crap about what this neophyte politician says about him. Joe Biden has many bigger and more important issues to concern himself.

However, Jackson does have a following — I presume. He did get elected to Congress after trumpeting his close ties to The Donald. Furthermore, the ex-doc keeps offering peanut-gallery diagnoses challenging Joe Biden’s mental acuity. Now, when the president of the United States is trying to rally the nation to his resistance to the unprovoked invasion of Ukraine by the tyrant who runs Russia, Ronny Jackson provides this kind of brainless rebuke of the commander in chief.

I hope my friends in the Texas Panhandle are proud of themselves for sending this nitwit to Congress.

If I could ask Jackson any question at this moment, it would be: How would you have prevented Putin from invading Ukraine?

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

World has flipped

What in the name of political sanity has happened to this old world of ours? I mean, we have Republicans and conservative media voices speaking fondly of a Russian dictator while Democrats and more progressive media voices are yelling loudly to get tough with the strongman.

There once was a time when the roles were reversed. No longer, folks.

Russian dictator Vladimir Putin has positioned his forces to invade Ukraine. A former GOP president has declared Putin to be a “genius” for the way he is preparing for the bloodbath. The current Democratic president is vowing punishing sanctions on Russia if Putin goes through with what the whole world believes he will do.

I remember the age of the Evil Empire that became the target of scorn and anger from Republicans in Congress and the president of the United States, Ronald Wilson Reagan. Democrats were seen as being squishy on the communists.

Now it’s the Democrats who are staking out tough-guy positions against the Soviet descendants and Republicans are questioning why the president is all fired up about seeking to stop the Russian advance on Ukraine.

What the … ?

I can’t figure this out, other than linking all of this to the arrival of The Donald on our political scene. He cozied up to the strongman and actually denigrated our intelligence network’s assertion that Russia interfered in our 2016 election.

Hmm. Therein might be Donald’s enduring legacy. He has helped flip the political calculus totally on its ear. Frankly, I prefer the side that remains angry with Putin and the Russians.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

DC riot, Donald Trump, national news, political news

Trump far from in the clear

Two top prosecutors from the Manhattan (N.Y.) district attorney’s office have quit, reportedly throwing a criminal investigation into Donald J. Trump into some state of disarray. The chatter suggests the new DA has choked on deciding whether to indict Donald for any sort of allegation associated with a longstanding criminal probe into his business dealings.

Does this mean Trump is home free? That he has nothing about which to worry? Oh, no. Far from it.

DA Alvin Bragg reportedly has balked on proceeding with indicting Donald. Two of his top legal eagles quit simultaneously, suggesting to many observers that there’s a major disagreement within the DA’s office on how to proceed.

But let’s hold on for a minute. This is one investigation. Do I want it to end now? No! As an ardent critic of Donald Trump, my preference would be for the DA who took over from a veteran prosecutor — Cyrus Vance Jr. — to follow the evidence and the law all the way to the end.

However, the New York attorney general, Letitia James, is still working on our own investigation into Trump’s alleged business chicanery. Let us also remember that the Trump Organization already is has been indicted on charges of tax fraud and other matters.

Oh, and then we have yet another criminal investigation down yonder in Fulton County, Ga., where DA Fani Willis is examining whether to prosecute Donald on a charge of interfering in a state election process. Donald did demand that Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger “find” enough votes to swing the state from Joe Biden’s column to Donald Trump.

Finally, there’s the House select committee examining Trump’s role in inciting the insurrection on 1/6. We now hear of possible cooperation with the committee from key Donald Trump acolytes, such as Rudolph Giuliani and — get a load of this! — Ivanka Trump, the elder daughter of Donald. The Justice Department already has indicted one key Trump aide, Steve Bannon, on a charge of contempt of Congress for his refusal to comply with a congressional subpoena.

This is all my way of suggesting that the resignations of the DA’s office prosecutor might not be as big a deal as many are making of it. The quitters might have stalled the progress of that probe by virtue of their resignation. It isn’t the end of Donald Trump’s troubles. Not by a very long shot!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news, political news

Now he’s just ‘Donald’

I have made a command decision on my blog. Future references to Donald J. Trump are going to be limited to just use of his first name.

Yes, I will hereby make initial references to the former Liar in Chief using his first and last name; subsequent references will be simply “Trump” or “Donald.” I think I’ll stick with “Donald” most of the time.

Hey, I can make that decision regarding my blog. Because it is my blog.

I refused during his term in office to link the terms “President” and “Trump” consecutively; I have held true to that just now, if you get my drift.

Therefore, I am no longer going to use the term “former president,” or “ex-president,” or even “former POTUS” to describe Donald in the future. He doesn’t deserve any sort of respect. He won’t get it from me.

I hope to dial back the frequency of blog posts referring to Donald. I’ll do my best to be more selective.

Hang with me, OK? Thanks. Now … let’s go on down the road together.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news, State news

Keep blathering about vote fraud … Donald

You know what? I think I am going to offer Donald J. Trump some campaign advice going into the upcoming election season — and I don’t mean the 2022 midterm election, but rather the 2024 presidential election.

It is this: Go ahead, Donald, and keep yapping about the “stolen” election in which you lost to President Biden. Please, keep reminding Americans of all political stripes what a complete ass you have made of yourself by (a) not conceding defeat in a free, fair and legal election and (b) questioning the integrity of an electoral system run at the local level by dedicated public servants.

Trump keeps repeating The Big Lie. Great! Go for it, Donald! Your resistance to forgetting the past kinda reminds me of how Ann Richards lost her re-election bid for Texas governor back in 1994. A novice pol named George W. Bush defeated Richards by staying focused on his campaign talking points, as well as by the incumbent governor’s own refusal to offer a vision on how she would govern the state for the next four years.

I recall well how it was watching that campaign unfold. Richards sought to live on the laurels of her election in 1990 in a race she was supposed to lose to Midland oil mogul Clayton Williams, who then destroyed his own campaign through a major gaffe about comparing rape to the bad weather, suggesting women should just “relax and enjoy it.”

So, we fast-forward to today and we hear Trump continuing to yap, yowl and yammer about “massive voter fraud” that did not exist in 2020. It didn’t. Honest! It was fair and legal. Just like the folks assigned to protect its security promised it would be.

Trump, though, keeps living in the past. He keeps reciting The Big Lie. He keeps losing court battles over myriad issues and legal challenges.

Stay with it, Donald. If it makes you feel like you’re going to win the hearts and minds of voters whose support you would need in your futile and feckless attempt to get back into office, then … what the hell?

Go for it! Few things would make me happier than to watch your political career go down in flames.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news, political news

Still pulling for POTUS

No one who reads this blog regularly will be surprised to read that I want President Joe Biden to succeed as he trudges through his term in office. I hope it is just his first term … but that remains an open question, to be crystal clear.

I am not going to presume that the president will even seek a second term, let alone that he’ll win election to another four years in the White House.

He came into office promising to (a) end the pandemic, (b) restore the “soul of the nation” and (c) get our economy moving again. I am going to give the president credit for achieving one of those ambitious goals and part of another one.

The economy is stronger than many of us seem to believe it is. Polling suggests Americans remain concerned about the economic track we’re on. I am unclear as to why there remains such uncertainty and angst. I know about inflationary pressures; we’re feeling them in our North Texas home, too. The job numbers continue to sparkle, unemployment continues to decline and we’re buying more goods and services.

The national soul restoration remains a work in progress. Sadly, we’re still being infected with disinformation peddled by Biden’s immediate predecessor. The Big Lie still has legs, although most of its limbs have been cut off by the judicial system that keeps undercutting POTUS 45’s efforts to undermine the integrity of our electoral system. Biden, though, has sought to return the United States to its role as leader of alliances and protector of civil liberties around the world. He’s done well in that regard, dispensing with the gratuitous criticism of our allies.

Yes, the pandemic remains a problem. But its drag on our national psyche is dwindling right along with the infection rates, the hospitalizations and the deaths from COVID infection. States are relaxing their mandates on masks and other precautions. I am not heeding Texas’s relaxation efforts. We are still masking up and are still keeping our distance from those we do not know.

I am continuing to pull for President Biden to keep up the fight and to score more successes as he moves along through his term. You know already he wasn’t my first choice to defeat the man who held the office for four previous years. Then he became the Democratic Party nominee in 2020 … and I was all in.

I remain all in. Keep the faith, Mr. President.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

DC riot, legal news, national news, political news

A lockup in Trump’s future?

I am trying to imagine what I thought not so long ago was an impossible ending to a former president’s legal difficulty, but which is be. ginning to look entirely possible … although not yet probable.

It is that Donald Trump might face a criminal indictment on multiple fronts. For tax fraud. For interfering in a state election. For violating a federal law designed to protect national security. Hmm. I might have missed something, but you get the picture … yes?

Trump’s business already is under indictment for multiple allegations, including tax fraud; the Manhattan (N.Y.) district attorney’s office alleges that his business inflated the cost of real estate to get sweeter loan deals. No can do, folks.

The Fulton County (Ga.) district attorney is examining whether Trump broke the law by pressuring the Georgia secretary of state to “find” enough votes to swing Georgia from the Joe Biden win column to Trump; hey, we have that act on recording.

The latest might be the most serious of all, in that the National Archives has alleged that Trump spirited classified documents from the White House and stashed them in Mar-a-Lago, Fla., where Donald and Melania Trump live; the Presidential Records Act expressly forbids such thievery of national security documents.

All told, if Trump is indicted and convicted of these crimes, he faces a lengthy prison term.

Isn’t that just rich?

And I haven’t mentioned — until this very moment — the House select panel looking into the 1/6 insurrection incited by Trump on that terrible day just two weeks before he left office.

Moreover, we’re beginning to find out that Donald Trump — who boasted of his fantastic business acumen — isn’t nearly as rich as he bragged about being. That, folks, doesn’t surprise me in the least. I always have said — and I have said so here — that people who are rich and smart don’t boast about it. That the ex-POTUS would keep yapping about his wealth and his smarts only tells me he is neither as rich or as smart as he wants to believe.

The most maddening aspect of this moron’s trail of idiocy is that he continues to have this weird hold on Republican Party voters’ skulls.

But … let’s allow the legal process to play out. I can wait.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com