Category Archives: national news

national news

How to react to new POTUS?

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

The day is progressing and as Donald Trump completes his tumultuous term as president of the United States, I am left to grapple with a bit of conflict among my emotions.

Oh, make no mistake, my overarching emotion will be of happiness that this vile, venal, vicious human being will no longer represent me as president. Joseph Biden Jr. presents a return to a more “normal” head of state/commander in chief.

His predecessor will take off Wednesday morning from Andrews Joint Base. He’ll head to Florida. He will be gone from my house, our house. That is all good.

I am wondering now, on this day before, whether the moment Biden and Kamala Harris take their oaths will produce some sort of emotional response. You know … will I well up, swallow hard. Yeah, probably.

That’s OK. I also am trying to dial back my expectations of what President Biden will be able to accomplish. The pandemic is no respecter of who’s in charge of affairs in Washington. The 100-day mask-wearing request seems reasonable to me. Biden will order masks to be worn on all federal property; that, too, makes perfect sense.

He wants us to pull together as Americans, patriots, lovers of our country. Hey, I’m all in.

A big day awaits us Wednesday. It should be full of emotion for all Americans and I include even those who are sorry to see Donald Trump fly away into private life. I can’t speak to how they will react. It’s of no concern to me, frankly.

I am just looking forward to a new day.

national news

What do we call that riot?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I have been grappling with how we should remember what occurred during the first week of this month, when terrorists invaded the Capitol Building.

Then I noticed a blog written by a friend of mine, a former colleague with whom I worked at the Beaumont Enterprise. Jon Talton, in his Rogue Columnist blog, called it “The Sixth of January.”

I read that and thought, “Hey, that has a bit of a ring to it.”

Rogue Columnist: Cold Civil War Turns Hot

It’s kind of like “9/11” has become a colloquial shorthand to which we refer to the attack on Sept. 11, 2001 by terrorists against the United States. When you say “9/11,” people know of what you are referring. I use that term all the time. Readers of this blog know to which I refer.

I am thinking now of using “The Sixth of January” as the new shorthand to describe the events of that hideous attack on our democratic process.

When you mention The Sixth of January, you will identify immediately with the attack that sought to prevent Congress — and Vice President Mike Pence — from ratifying the Electoral College vote that elected Joe Biden and Kamala Harris as the next POTUS and VPOTUS. It was an attack on our democratic process, on our very government … and it was incited by the lame-duck president of the United States, Donald John Trump.

Remember the Alamo. Remember Pearl Harbor. Remember 9/11. Remember the Sixth of January.

Hmm. Yeah, I might go with that.

national news

Waiting for ‘normal’ presidency

(AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

As we Americans have come to learn to our dismay Donald Trump was anything but a “normal” president of the United States.

He led a chaotic, corrupt, incoherent administration. He governed that way and is governing that way to the very end of his tenure.

I never, ever thought I would say this but I am looking forward in just two days to the start of a “normal” presidential administration led by a man who knows how to govern, knows how government works and is capable of taking the time to learn what he doesn’t know already.

President Biden likely won’t set the world afire with soaring rhetoric. He pledges to seek unity as he takes the reins of power. He will take his oath of office on Wednesday and will start the unification process immediately.

He won’t blast out an incessant stream of Twitter messages. He won’t demand Cabinet officials demonstrate undying loyalty to him. Biden won’t pit Americans against each other, or pit this country against our neighbors to the north and south of us.

I doubt seriously we’re going to hear President Biden declare, if we are faced with the kind of violence we saw in 2017 when Klansmen and Nazis were lifted to the same moral equivalence as the people who were protesting against them.

No, all he’s going to do is govern the way presidents of the United States traditionally have governed. That he is succeeding an individual who never grasped the principle of compromise or ever understood the complexities of governing with two other co-equal branches of government only heightens the anxiousness many of us feel as return to a “normal” president.

These past four years have seemed like a lifetime to many of us who like following the twists and turns of government.

Normality? Bring it on!

national news

When does Trump vanish for good?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Speaking metaphorically, it is clear that Donald John Trump is being dragged kicking and screaming from the presidency he liked to claim as his very own.

He isn’t leaving quietly, or peacefully, or like anything approaching a gentlemanly manner. He will jet off Wednesday morning to Florida. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris will take their oaths. The nation will turn an important page.

But … here’s the deal. We’re going to keep talking about Trump. Bloggers such as me will keep writing about him, at least for as long as he is standing trial in the U.S. Senate — for the second time! After that? It’s anyone’s guess. It will depend, I suppose on whether the Senate convicts him of incitement of insurrection and then determines he shouldn’t ever seek public office.

Regardless of what the Senate decides, I feel confident in suggesting that Donald Trump’s political career is over. The Capitol Hill  riot and Trump’s exhortation of the terrorists has guaranteed Trump’s political demise.

President Biden has an ambitious agenda awaiting him. He will put his signature on a number of executive orders out of the chute. The president will seek to turn the corner quickly on that killer pandemic. He wants to jump-start an economy that has been crippled by the virus.

Many of us, though, will keep talking about Donald Trump. He will command our attention in ways that no one in their right minds desires.

One measure of success for President Biden might make itself known the moment we no longer are thinking consciously about Trump. I await that moment in time. I am anxious for a time when Donald Trump simply disappears from public view.

That day will arrive. Eventually. I want it to arrive much sooner than later. Take my word for this notion, too, which is that I take no pleasure in commenting negatively on Donald Trump. Critics of this blog believe I relish it. I do not. I want to move on and I intend to move on at the appropriate time.

When will we know when Trump drops off our screen? I cannot describe how it will be made evident. We’ll all just know it happens when it does.

I await the arrival.

national news

Why the GOP struggle to loosen Trump’s grip?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell reportedly is struggling to move the GOP away from the Donald Trump era into, well, something that might resemble the world that used to welcome his political party.

Put another way, McConnell might seek to shed the GOP as being the Party of Trump. Good call, if that is his aim.

I struggle to realize why it’s so hard for Republican Party honchos to separate themselves from this toxic president. Trump will be gone in two days. Trumpism, the remnants of the movement that Trump created, will continue. Whether it is as strong and vocal as it has been during Trump’s time as president remains to be seen.

Truth be told, Donald Trump is not a Republican. He is not the real thing. He ran as a Republican only because it would provide the clearer path for him to the presidency. Maybe he thought Republicans are more gullible than Democrats, that they would swallow the snake oil he peddled more readily than those of the other party. I cannot say such a thing with conviction; I only can speculate it to be the case.

Trump donned many mantles during his term in office. He was the Liar in Chief, the Demagogue in Chief, the Sore Loser in Chief, the Panderer in Chief, the Russian Appeaser in Chief … you name it, Trump fit the bill.

He did not adhere to a hard and fast philosophy on taxes. He sought to “put America first,” but then slobbered all over Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. The term “fiscal responsibility” is as foreign to Trump as anything uttered in English.

Donald Trump is a classic Republican In Name Only and yet his most fervent followers hang that label on those within the GOP who disagree with Trump’s world view. Are you kidding me?

I wish McConnell and other actual Republicans luck in trying to shuck the Trump skin. Then again, they bought into Trump’s phony rhetoric, too.

national news

Patriots? No, perverts!

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

How about this bit of symmetry?

The terrorists who stormed Capitol Hill on Jan. 6 at Donald Trump’s inciteful rhetoric were no more “patriots” than the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11, supposedly in the name of Islam.

The Trump terrorists were perverts to patriotism, just as the 9/11 terrorists had perverted a great religion.

The more I see the video of the Jan. 6 terrorist riot and hear them screaming their “love” of country while beating cops with Old Glory-adorned flag poles, the more I think of the monstrous terrorist attack on 9/11.

I make no apologies for connecting those events. The mob that sought to disrupt Congress from doing its constitutional duty of ratifying the Electoral College vote that elected Joe Biden as president was every bit as heinous as terrorists who do their deeds in the name of Islam.

I know that the death count on Capitol Hill doesn’t begin to  match the pain inflicted on 9/11. I am making no connection on that level.

Instead I merely am attaching degrees of perversion between the groups of fanatics. I see practically no difference between those who attacked us on 9/11 and those who attacked our sacred government on Jan. 6.

Yes, Dr. Dean, they’re ‘Muslim terrorists’ | High Plains Blogger

national news

Thank you, Mr. POTUS

(AP Photo/Jeffrey Phelps)

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

It occurs to me that I owe Donald John Trump a debt of thanks.

Not a huge debt, but one nevertheless that compels me to mention it here. So I will.

Trump will be president for just two more days. He has for more than four years given High Plains Blogger ample grist on which to comment. For that, I am saying “thank you” to Donald Trump.

I’ll be candid. Once we get past this man’s shenanigans and chicanery I might find myself hard-pressed to keep the blog going at the pace it has kept up during Trump’s term in office. I will do my level best.

To be sure, I am not done with Trump just yer. He will be out of office, but he will undergo that Senate trial after being impeached by the House for the second time. That in itself is a record. What’s more, he is set to issue more pardons on his last full day in office; that will occur Tuesday, reportedly, and my gut tells me we will get to witness in real time once again this individual’s venality.

I have chronicled fairly thoroughly over the course of his first campaign for the president, during the Trump presidency and his failed bid for re-election why I believe he is profoundly unfit for public office of any sort … let alone for president of the United States.

This blog features commentary on public policy and politics. Therefore, it is imperative that I maintain that focus given that Trump occupied the most visible and revered office in the land. He will surrender that office to Joseph R. Biden Jr. in just two days (thank God in heaven!).

At one level I look forward to commenting on policies put forth by the new president. I also am going to miss — maybe for just a little while — the opportunity to spill my guts over the idiocy, lunacy, chaos, confusion and controversy that Trump relishes.

I hope to get past my Trump-dumping soon.

Donald Trump issued many new eras into the American political scene. One of  them is how his presence poisoned so many relationships among Americans. I regret that differences of opinion over Trump’s conduct have ruined some of my friendships. I am happy to report, though, that many longtime friendships have survived the tumult.

I am even happier to report that I still love my family members who voted for Trump and who stuck with him through it all; I hope they still love me. I’ll have to ask them.

So, with that I am looking forward to heralding in a new  era. It’s all yours, President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.

As for Donald Trump, thank you, Mr. President, for giving me so much material with which to work.

Now … get the hell out of my sight!

national news

Cruz is doing what?

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(Photo by Samuel Corum/Getty Images)

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Ted Cruz is going where, doing what? The junior U.S. senator from Texas is going to attend Joe Biden’s inauguration as the 46th president of the United States?

Glory be! Shut my mouth! Ruffle my hair and call me Frankie!

This comes after the Republican flamethrower fought against certifying Biden’s election as president, fomenting the Big Lie about voter fraud that didn’t exist in the 2020 presidential election.

Cruz has been vilified, pilloried and pounded … with good reason for the obstructionist tactics he employed while trying to block the Senate’s vote to ratify the Electoral College vote.

The Texas Tribune reported: “Millions of Americans who have peacefully expressed their deep concerns regarding election integrity deserve to have their voices heard,” Cruz said in a statement after the Capitol siege. “I very much wish Congress had not set aside these concerns, but I respect the position each of my colleagues took. Debate in the two houses of Congress is the proper way to resolve our political differences, not through violent attacks.”

Ted Cruz, John Cornyn plan to attend Joe Biden’s inauguration | The Texas Tribune

This news actually leaves me with mixed feelings. I detested what Cruz did to sour the mood over Biden’s election, which was all done above board, fair and square … and totally secure.

I’m glad he’ll attend the inauguration of the clear and decisive winner of a presidential election. It’s the very least he can do as a sitting U.S. senator, even one from the opposing party.

Cruz could make it better were he to admit he erred in contesting the most secure election in the nation’s history.

Will he do that? I don’t think so, either.

national news

Biden inherits historic burden

(AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Let’s flash back a few decades, shall we?

President Woodrow Wilson served while the nation was battling a killer pandemic; President Franklin Roosevelt took office during the Great Depression, with an economy in free fall; President Lyndon Johnson assumed office with the nation struggling with racial tension.

President Joe Biden? He’s about to take office to battle a raging pandemic, an economy in dire peril and a nation torn by racial strife.

Oh, and let’s add that his immediate predecessor, Donald Trump, will be standing trial in the U.S. Senate for inciting an insurrection that resulted in a deadly riot on Capitol Hill.

The new president is going to have a full plate, you know?

These are challenging times. I am heartened by the knowledge that the new president spent a professional lifetime in government. Thus, he knows which buttons to push, which levers to pull, whose arms to twist.

He will need all the skill he has developed over his years in the Senate and as vice president of the United States. President Biden’s lengthy career should hold him in good stead. It also should serve well a nation that needs significant repair from the damage done by the man who is heading out the door.

DC riot, national news

Videos keep worsening Jan. 6 tragedy

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

So help me I don’t know how much more of this I can take.

The New Yorker magazine today released a video from the Jan. 6 invasion of Capitol Hill by the horde of terrorists. It sent chills up my back; it made the hair seemingly stand up. Videos such as this provide ample and graphic evidence of what Donald Trump incited that morning while exhorting the crowd gathered in front of him.

Oh, and then we had Don Trump Jr. saying something like “coming after you” those who don’t turn from “zeroes to heroes” and Rudy Giuliani calling for “trial by combat.”

It just gets more repulsive daily, it seems, as video after video surfaces to show the world — yes, the entire planet — what kind of moron this nation saw fit to elect as its president four years ago.

The latest video shows terrorists busting through windows at the Capitol Building. They are marching under Old Glory, wearing those hideous MAGA hats, yelling “Where’s f***ing Nancy (Pelosi)!” They chant “Hang Mike Pence!” The video shows rioters pulling a police officer into the crowd and beating him within an inch of his life with flagpoles.

And  they scream “USA, USA, USA!” while attacking the very seat of our national government!

How in the name of decency does any of this make any godd*** sense?

The House impeached Trump one week later. He now will stand trial in the Senate. Trump will be out of office. Following true to form Trump said his conduct was proper. He takes no responsibility for the “incitement of insurrection” that he clearly and without any serious question is guilty of committing.

A Senate conviction won’t remove him from office. It can bar him from ever seeking public office again. That punishment would be good enough for me, even though I preferred a conviction during the first impeachment a year ago would have prevented all of this tragedy from unfolding in the first place.

Three days to go before President Biden takes the reins.

Oh, my. Let’s hold on for dear life.