Category Archives: national news

national news

If only it was ‘peaceful’ …

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Twelve years ago, Republican President George W. Bush opened the door to his successor, a Democrat, who won a hard-fought election to succeed him. Barack Obama began the transition to president of the United States seamlessly and in an orderly fashion.

This time? Another Republican, Donald Trump, lost a re-election fight, also to a Democrat, Joe Biden. His reaction? He slammed the brakes on any semblance of peaceful, orderly and seamlessness on that transition.

President Bush reacts to Obama’s victory in 2008 election – YouTube

President Obama took office with a nation in turmoil. The economy was collapsing. Yes, the tossed a lot of blame on GOP policies and the president. However, George W. Bush set all of that aside to welcome the new president and his family to the White House.

Donald Trump has shown no such class. He claims the election was rigged. He fomented a terrorist attack on the Capitol. Five people died in the melee.

Thus, the new president has taken office with the nation reeling from economic collapse and fighting a worldwide pandemic that has killed nearly a half-million Americans.

The president he defeated is facing a second impeachment trial in the Senate. Members of Congress are expressing outright fear of serving with their colleagues. The anger and outright loathing is palpable among them.

This isn’t how it is supposed to go. Yet this is what we face today as President Biden seeks ways to rid the nation of the pandemic and right our ship of state.

There once was a time when candidates sparred, one of them would win, the loser would dust himself off, call the winner, congratulate him and promise to “work with” him to keep the country moving forward. This most recent election has jumbled that formula for success.

A return of that time-tested practice isn’t going to return soon. It well might eventually. Indeed, the peaceful transition of power — which now sounds cliche — is an essential ingredient for “making America great.” 

national news

Count ’em: 11 GOP heroes emerge

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Eleven Republicans emerged this afternoon during a vote to kick a fellow GOP House member off two committees because of insanely offensive remarks she has made.

Just 11 of them. Out of more than 200 members of the GOP caucus. Sad. However, the number of Republicans with courage exceeded experts’ predictions.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene no longer serves on the Education and Budget committees. The House today voted her off the panels because she is a QAnon follower who has said some amazingly crass things about tragic events. Such as that the Sandy Hook and Parkland school massacres were made up; that 9/11 didn’t really occur; that Muslims shouldn’t be allowed to hold elected office; that Speaker Nancy Pelosi should be assassinated.

It was a bipartisan vote today to remove her from any committee assignments. However, many of us with there would have been more Republican House members to join their Democratic colleagues in speaking out against the hate spewed by Rep. Greene.

I am sorry to say that no one in the Texas GOP congressional caucus rose up against Greene. They all stood with her. I intend to ask my congressman, Republican Van Taylor of Plano, why he voted “no” on removing her from Education and Budget panels. I hope he answers me directly instead of sending out a boiler-plate helping of platitudes.

For now I want to salute the 11 House Republicans who mustered up the decency to do the right thing by rebuking a colleague for the hatred she represents.

International news, national news

Biden reverses course in foreign policy

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

President Biden has demonstrated a recognition that Donald J. Trump never did … which is that the world is shrinking in a figurative sense and that the United States cannot possibly go it alone on matters that involve the entire planet.

He delivered a foreign policy speech and told the world that the United States is re-engaging its worldwide allies and calling — get a load of this — for greater attention to human rights.

“Though many of these values have come under intense pressure in recent years, even pushed to the brink in the last few weeks, the American people are going to emerge from this stronger, more determined and better equipped to unite the world in fighting to defend democracy – because we have fought for it ourselves,” he said.

You’ll recall how Donald Trump attended a NATO meeting and upbraided our allies in public for not paying more to defend themselves. He sought to shed our traditional role as guarantor of freedom in western Europe. While it is good that our allies have stepped up and are paying more for their own defense, the public scolding from the U.S. commander in chief left our allies with the feeling that they no longer could trust this country to be there for them when threats emerge.

As USA Today reported: Biden, accompanied by Vice President Kamala Harris and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, warned that the U.S. faces a moment of “accelerating global challenges” – from a pandemic to the climate crisis to nuclear proliferation – all of which he said will be solved only by nations working together.

“We can’t do it alone,” he said.

‘Diplomacy is back’: Biden promises to restore ties with allies in dramatic foreign policy shift (msn.com)

Exactly, Mr. President. We need our allies. We need our alliances from which we frame our relationships with friends around the world.

I am one American who welcomes our return to the Paris Climate Accord and to the World Health Organization, two issues from which Donald Trump severed U.S. involvement as part of his effort to “put America first.”

Greater reliance on our alliances will not compromise American interests, as President Biden said in his 20-minute speech. Thus, Joe Biden also intends — in a far more nuanced and sophisticated manner — to put America first … but we won’t act alone.

national news

Liz Cheney: a new hero?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Donald Trump’s time in public office has resulted in many seemingly impossible events.

Such as turning me — an unabashed center/lefty — into a fan of a right-wing politician who, in this instance, is Liz Cheney.

Cheney is a Republican House member from Wyoming. She’s No. 3 on the GOP congressional leadership chart. She voted on Jan. 13 to impeach Donald Trump, deciding that Trump’s incitement of an insurrection was too much for her … and for the nation.

Rep. Cheney is right. Trump was as wrong as wrong can be to bellow his encouragement for the riotous mob to march on Jan. 6 on Capitol Hill to “take back our country.”

Cheney is now the target of Trumpkin Corps members among her colleagues in the House. They want to remove Cheney from her leadership post. The House GOP caucus, though, decided overwhelmingly to keep her in that position. Good for them.

Good also for Liz Cheney for standing up for the Constitution.

national news

Wrong audience, Rep. Greene

Staff photo by C.B. Schmelter 

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Well now … that is nice. I guess.

U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia — the QAnon queen of the House of Representatives — met with her Republican colleagues behind closed doors.

She reportedly offered an apology to her colleagues. We don’t know what she said because it was done behind closed (and presumably locked) doors. Then, when she finished, she got a standing ovation — again, reportedly — from roughly half of those in the room.

I do not accept her apology. Because she made it to the wrong audience.

Rep. Greene needs to apologize to the parents of the first- and second-graders who were slaughtered at Sandy Hook Elementary School; she called their murder a hoax.

She needs to apologize to the survivors and the loved ones of the Parkland, Fla., who died in another horrible school massacre. She has said that event also was made up

Greene needs to apologize to the family members, friends and assorted loved ones of those who died in the Pentagon on 9/11. She has declared that the Pentagon never was hit because there is “no evidence” of a plane flying into the office building.

Rep. Greene needs to apologize to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, in person, for declaring her desire to see the speaker “executed” for committing an act of treason.

Finally, Greene needs to apologize to the rest of us out here who are utterly appalled that a member of Congress could hold the hideous beliefs that fester in what passes for this woman’s heart.

None of that likely will happen.

Marjorie Taylor Greene is a disgrace.

national news

Wanting to purge Trump

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Oh, how I long for the day when I can purge my conscience of any thought of Donald J. Trump as I watch the current president of the United States carry out his myriad duties … such as what occurred last night at the service honoring a slain Capitol Police officer.

President and Mrs. Biden walked into the Capitol Rotunda to honor the memory of Officer Brian Sicknick, the young man who died in the horrendous riot of Jan. 6, when the terrorists stormed Capitol Hill in a blatant, bald-faced act of insurrection against the U.S. government.

I watched the first couple place their hands over their hearts. I watched President Biden cross himself as they moved away from the officer’s remains.

Then it hit me: We haven’t yet heard a single word of grief, mourning or regret from the man on whose watch the riot occurred and which cost Brian Sicknick his life. Donald Trump continues to remain silent. He continues to demonstrate fully why he was so hideously unfit to hold the office of president of the United States.

The terrorists attacked the Capitol Building at Trump’s urging. The blood that was shed that day splattered all over Donald Trump.

Brian Sicknick died because Donald Trump exhorted the terrorists to do what they did. And yet … the  former president remains stone-cold silent.

One of these days — and I hope it is soon — I won’t think of Donald Trump when I watch President Joe Biden comport himself appropriately in times of grief.

national news

Heading for the congressional outhouse

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Marjorie Taylor Greene appears to be heading for a location way past the back bench of the U.S. House of Representatives.

The first-term Georgia congresswoman — who’s become infamous with her QAnon conspiracy sympathies — might be consigned to the congressional outhouse if her colleagues do what they must in a floor vote Thursday.

Greene has made a “name” for herself by fomenting conspiracy lies about school shootings, about the 9/11 terror attacks, about Muslims, about gay Americans. She is a crackpot who somehow got elected from the 14th Congressional District of Georgia.

The full House will vote on whether she should be stripped of her committee assignments. The House GOP leadership has placed her on the Education and Budget committees. It’s the Education post that has rattled so many Americans in light of what Greene has said.

House to vote Thursday to drop Greene from all committees | TheHill

Greene has suggested that the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre that killed 20 first- and second-graders along with six teachers was a made-up story. She has castigated survivors of the Stoneham High School massacre in Florida as well.

For this loon to be able to discuss matters involving public education is so far beyond the pale it defies anything approaching logic.

Expulsion from the House is unlikely. What the legislative chamber well could do is virtually silence her in the manner it has done with other members of the body, the most recent of whom was former Rep. Steve King of Iowa, who had this horrifying tendency to speak well of racist organizations.

There has to be a reckoning for Greene back home in Georgia when her seat is up in 2022. Congress must not become a dumping ground for the filth that pours of this individual’s mouth.

International news, national news

Biden restores humanity to immigration policy

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

President Biden, using the power of the pen, is doing his level best to restore a sense of humanity and compassion to a national immigration policy that took on a radically different tone during the tenure of his immediate presidential predecessor.

Signing executive orders left and right in the Oval Office, Biden has reversed a Donald Trump administration policy that separated children from their parents in a widespread effort to stop illegal entry into this country.

The president said he isn’t enacting a new law, just discarding a bad policy with his executive order. The policy is as inhumane as anything we have seen in the past, oh, 60 or 70 years.

Politico reports: “Fully remedying [Trump’s] actions will take time and require a full government approach,” a senior administration official said in a briefing with reporters on Monday night.

“But President Biden has been very clear about restoring compassion and order to our immigration system and correcting the divisive, inhumane and immoral policies of the last four years,” the official said, adding that Biden’s action, so far, was “just the beginning.”

Biden signs executive orders on family separation and asylum – POLITICO

President Biden’s order establishes a task force that seeks to identify children separated from their parents. The Trump administration enacted what it called a “zero tolerance policy” on illegal entry and separated roughly 5,500 families; more than 600 children remain unaccounted for, according to officials.

President Biden vowed during the 2020 campaign to restore a sense of humanity to our immigration policy. No, he doesn’t favor “open borders,” which has become a demagogic canard for those who favored the family-separation policies enacted by Donald Trump’s administration. Biden’s stated goal is to give undocumented U.S. residents a faster track toward obtaining legal residency status or citizenship.

He wants families restored first. That is what the executive order seeks to do.

military news, national news

Always revere the office

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

It’s no secret that I am delighted beyond measure to be rid of Donald Trump and I welcome a new president of the United States.

President Biden has taken a firm grip on the levers of power and for that I am grateful. However, I want to share a brief story that involves in a tangential way the man Biden succeeded as president.

My wife and I vacationed in Washington, D.C., during the summer of 2017. We visited our niece and her husband. We spent several days walking around the city with them, enjoying the sights and sounds of our nation’s capital.

We were strolling through Georgetown when I heard a helicopter flying overhead. I looked up. It was Marine One, the military chopper that carries the president of the United States. Donald Trump had traveled somewhere and was returning at that moment aboard the helicopter to the White House.

I must acknowledge a certain thrill at seeing Marine One passing over us, even as it carried the detestable individual who had moved into the White House earlier that year.

This is my way of expressing my reverence for the presidency. I have expressed already in this forum my love of pageantry, of the pomp and circumstance that accompanies the office and the person who occupies it.

True story, but the thrill at seeing Marine One en route to the White House did not diminish one little bit on that lovely summer day.

This is my way of suggesting that the office is far larger and important than any individual who sits behind that big desk in the Oval Office.

national news

Is this trial different? Yes … here’s why

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

The men and women who will prosecute the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump have filed their legal brief in advance of that process.

It states, in part: “The Nation will indeed remember January 6, 2021 — and President Trump’s singular responsibility for that tragedy. It is impossible to imagine the events of January 6 occurring without President Trump creating a powder keg, striking a match, and then seeking personal advantage from the ensuing havoc.”

READ: House Impeachment Managers Outline Case Against Trump : NPR

My head and my heart are conflicting with each other as the nation prepares to witness this spectacle unfold. My heart desires a conviction, even though Donald Trump no longer is in office. He needs to be held accountable for inciting that horrifying riot.

My noggin tells me something different. It is that the House managers who will prosecute this case will be speaking to a “jury” that has made up its mind. Fifty Senate Democrats want to convict the former president; some of the 50 Republicans may join them, but not enough of them will cross that threshold to deliver a conviction.

The Constitution sets a high bar, requiring a two-thirds vote in the Senate to convict a president.

So, why is this trial different from the first trial that acquitted him on abuse of power and obstruction of justice? It is different because the crime Trump committed on Jan. 6 had a direct impact on the jurors, the senators who will be sitting in judgment.

Trump incited the rioting mob to march on Capitol Hill. The terrorists did as he stated. They stormed into the Capitol Building, where senators and House members were meeting to certify the results of the 2020 election. Senators and House members were sent scurrying; they feared for their very lives!

How in the name of sanity does someone give a pass to someone who incited that kind of violence when it could have resulted in catastrophe for those who will pass judgment? You cannot!

Trump has assembled a new defense team; the first one quit because of differences with the client over trial strategy. The new team will argue that the Senate lacks standing to try a president who isn’t in office. This layman believes that argument is so much crap!

This trial should be dramatically different from the first one. If there exist enough Republican senators with a sense of moral outrage over what happened on the very floor where they will hear this case, then there well could be a vastly different outcome.

Sadly, I fear that the cowards among the GOP caucus are going to win the day.