Category Archives: national news

national news

An abuse of power? Yes, most certainly

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I won’t dignify the individuals who tonight received a presidential pardon from Donald Trump by printing their names here.

They are four contractors who, while working in Iraq during a war, committed war crimes by killing men, women and children. They were tried extensively by federal officials. They were convicted of those crimes and sentenced to prison.

Donald Trump today pardoned them, set them free in exercising his full presidential pardon power as prescribed in the U.S. Constitution. I don’t question that Trump has the power to exercise that provision. I do question why he would pardon four men who were convicted of murdering innocent victims.

We have just witnessed a supreme abuse of power. Donald Trump, I dare say, has committed what could be considered an impeachable offense. It is sickening in the extreme.

We have 29 days to go before this madman leaves office. My goodness. Donald Trump is an evil despot.

Just think of the hideous miscarriages of justice that could be offered up prior to Trump’s departure from the Oval office.

national news

Trump does what? Threatens COVID relief package?

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Donald J. Trump’s threat to derail a long-awaited, long-debated COVID-19 relief package might be worthy of praise … except for this little factoid.

Trump took no part, none at all, he was AWOL during Congress’s agonizing debate over how to help Americans affected by the coronavirus pandemic.

Now he has a bill on his desk. It was approved by rousing bipartisan majorities in both congressional chambers. Trump’s reaction has been to withhold his signature from a $1.4 trillion spending package that offers $900 billion in COVID relief; the bill includes $600 stimulus checks to be sent to Americans who qualify.

Trump wants more money sent to Americans. He calls the package a “disgrace.”

What? Wait a minute! Where was Trump during the negotiations? He didn’t call legislative leaders. He didn’t pressure anyone to craft a bill to his liking. He was nowhere to be seen or heard — except when he was yammering about an election he lost!

Heads up, congressional Republicans: Aren’t you glad you stood with this clown, the guy who has just threatened to put your political future in dire jeopardy?

national news, national security

‘Under control,’ Mr. POTUS?

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Here is a word to the wise.

When you hear the words “We have it under control” come from Donald J. Trump, you should pull the blanket up tightly over your head and not move for as long as you can remain still.

Trump decided to utter that phrase when asked the other day about the Russian hacking of our security system, which intelligence officials have called the worst such incident in U.S. — if not world — history.

Trump said it’s “under control” and said China might be the culprit … not those Russians.

Well, let’s harken back to a previous time the POTUS declared something to be “under control.” It was earlier this year. The COVID-19 coronavirus had just stormed ashore. We had a handful of cases. Trump said then it was “under control.”

Well … it wasn’t. It isn’t yet. It has killed hundreds of thousands of Americans. Help is on its way in the form of vaccines that have been developed and are being developed. However, Donald Trump’s so-called assurance that something is “under control” should be cause for serious alarm.

Therefore, I am terribly concerned about the latest Russian attack.

national news

Can Trump’s exit get any uglier? Uhh, yeah

REUTERS/James Glover II

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Donald John Trump’s exit from the presidency of the United States is getting uglier by the day.

I wish I could find a bottom to its ugliness. Sadly, I cannot locate it.

So many reports are coming out daily about Trump’s seeming disinterest in the nation’s actual existential crisis: the coronavirus pandemic that is killing thousands of Americans each day. He is obsessed with an election he lost and fixated on ways he could possibly remain in power.

Trump hates the term “loser,” except when he uses it to describe others. Now that he must wear the label himself, Trump has become some sort of monster in the White House. He convenes meetings that include a disgraced national security adviser who received a presidential pardon and a campaign lawyer who insists that Trump could seize voting machines in precincts that voted for President-elect Biden.

The Russians have hacked into our security network and Trump is silent, except to downplay its significance.

I don’t fear necessarily for the future of our democratic system of  government. It will survive this maelstrom of misery and mayhem. However, it is going to require some repair from the new president and his team. To that end, my hope is that President Biden deploys his vast knowledge of government and its workings to set about restoring the regular channels of communication and retooling government’s machinery.

I guess my deepest concern at this moment, as Trump’s term as president staggers to a close, is the prospect of the commander in chief doing something profoundly foolish and reckless intending to take our attention away from the Russian hacking operation. That would be for Trump to start an armed conflict, thrusting young Americans into harm’s way.

Is that beyond the capacity of a president who appears fixated solely on holding onto power? Absolutely not!

This is a dangerous man and this is a dangerous time.

We have 30 days to go before sanity returns to the Oval Office. I am holding my breath.

national news, Uncategorized

POTUS has gone mad

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

The headline over The Atlantic story says it clearly.

“Trump Is Losing His Mind.”

If we are to believe the New York Times story — and I do believe it — then we now know that Donald Trump has discussed openly the idea of imposing martial law as a way to overturn the results of a free and fair presidential election.

It was an election he lost fair and square to President-elect Joe Biden.

Furthermore, he has considered hiring disgraced lawyer Sidney Powell to serve as special counsel to look directly into the election results. Oh, and there’s more: He brought in his former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, who Trump pardoned for crimes relating to his lying to the FBI over testimony he gave regarding his connection with Russian operatives who attacked our electoral system in 2016.

This came forward after a White House meeting. The NY Times reported it. Trump, of course, calls it “fake news.”

However, I am going to believe the reporting done by the Times. I also am going to endorse the headline atop The Atlantic story.

Donald Trump’s obsession with clinging to power has created a patently dangerous episode within the walls of the White House.

We have to keep our eyes on this guy.

national news

Deal arrives … finally!

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Call me a cynic or just plain pi**ed off at Congress and most certainly at the current president of the United States.

If members of the House and Senate are expecting any back-slapping or high-fiving from me on the deal they have struck to provide pandemic relief while keeping the government operating, well … they won’t get it.

Congressional leaders have cobbled together a $900 billion pandemic relief package as part of a $1.4 trillion government funding bill that keeps the government running until October. Fine. Thanks, ladies and gentlemen.

I am still amazed, though, at the drama, the theatrics, the posturing and name-calling that preceded this deal. We had Republican senators blocking measures that would have provided $1,200 relief payments. Why block it? They were concerned — and this is really rich — the impact on the federal debt!

What a crock of horse dookey! Senators and House members, namely Republicans, didn’t give a crap about the debt when they enacted enormous tax cuts for rich folks. Now they have found deficit/debt religion? Give me a break!

What’s more, they have subjected many millions of Americans to unnecessary anxiety while they await some form of help from their government, the one populated by officials who take an oath to serve you and me.

I am glad they found a way to get ‘er done. I am not going to sing praises to the nimrods on Capitol Hill or the dips*** who lives — for the time being — in the White House.

This is no way to run a government.

I am going to make a request of the new guy who’s moving into the White House on Jan. 20.

Uh, President Biden? Please clunk some Democratic and Republican heads together when you get settled in and start searching for ways to provide long-term solutions to our on-going crisis in paying for our government.

I am sick and tired of wondering whether my government will remain open when our legislators and the president cannot arrive at a timely solution to crises.

national news

Biden’s Senate knowledge will serve us well

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

President-elect Joe Biden’s lengthy government service and experience are well-known to us all.

I happen to believe that the experience Biden brings to the presidency well might be the greatest asset he can deploy as he tries to repair the damage that Donald Trump has done to the institutions of government.

The president-elect spent 36 years in the Senate before being elected vice president in 2008. During his decades on Capitol Hill and in the White House, Biden developed a reputation as someone with extraordinary bipartisan relationships. He got along well with Republicans as well as with Democrats.

That government experience stands as a major selling point for electing him president over an incumbent who came to government via the business world and who never grasped the complexities of the federal government machinery.

Biden does not need any schooling on how the system works.

He will inherit a government in trouble. The nation is in trouble. We are battling a killer pandemic, which has caused an economic collapse the likes of which none of us has seen. The president is required at this juncture to be able to juggle many balls at once. Biden appears well-equipped — along with the team he is assembling — of doing what needs to be done.

Will it work? Will the policies he intends to implement do the job? That remains an open question.

However, I intend to place a good measure of faith in the ability of the new president to look for the right buttons to push.

national news

POTUS-elect: better man than most

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

President-elect Biden is a far better man than I am.

Someone shoved a microphone in his face the other day to ask him to react to Sen. Mitch McConnell’s belated recognition that Biden, indeed, is the president-elect.

Biden’s response caught me by surprise. He said he had spoken with the Senate majority leader and thanked him for his congratulations … and then pledged to work closely with him on areas where the two men can find agreement.

What might my reaction be? It wouldn’t be nearly as magnanimous. For that matter, Donald Trump damn sure wouldn’t have been as gracious had he been the target of the well-chronicled suspicion that GOP politicians have leveled at the Democratic president-elect.

McConnell stood behind some phony excuse about letting the “process play out” before recognizing the obvious, which is that Joe Biden defeated Trump in the Nov. 3 election. After the Electoral College certified Biden’s win, only then did McConnell speak from the Senate floor to congratulate the president-elect.

Fiddlesticks, man!

national news

Are we better off? Umm, no!

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Ronald Reagan once asked famously during a 1980 presidential debate with President Carter whether the nation was “better off than we were four years ago.”

The question seared the audience that heard him ask it. Voters responded on Election Day 1980 with a stunning verdict: The answer was “no,” and they delivered a landslide victory to Reagan.

Rahm Emanuel, a former Chicago mayor and an acknowledged Democratic partisan, asked  that question today in terms of Donald Trump’s tenure as president. The answer, according to Emanuel, is an equally resounding “no.”

Therein lies the reason why Trump lost his bid for a second term, just as President Carter lost his own second-term run 40 years ago. The nation is fundamentally worse off today than we were when Trump took office.

Trump has presided over a horrendous coarsening of our national debate; he has inflicted heavy damage on our international alliances; Trump has governed by chaos and tossed continuity into the crapper; the POTUS has made full-throated lying an acceptable form of communication … and we have the pandemic.

I will not blame Trump for the virus that has killed more than 300,000 Americans. I do blame him fully for the shabby, shoddy and shameful response he has orchestrated. He lied to us about its severity from the get-go; he has contradicted the advice of his medical experts; Trump has put Americans at grave risk of death as a result.

The pandemic is an existential threat to our national security and Donald Trump has failed to remain faithful to the oath he took when he became president.

Have there been successes along the way? Sure. Israel’s relationships in the Middle East with neighboring Arab nations gives us hope for a more lasting peace in that region; prior to the pandemic’s arrival a year ago, our economy was experiencing significant growth. I will not short-sell those positive outcomes.

The pandemic and all the other failures, though, have left us worse off today than we were when Donald Trump took office and delivered an inaugural address that produced precisely one memorable moment: that “the American carnage” would come to an immediate end. Well, guess what. It hasn’t ended.

President-elect Biden has a monumental task awaiting him when he takes office in 31 days. Just as Americans spoke decisively 40 years when we elected President Reagan — who posed what has become the threshold question for all politicians — we have spoken yet again in electing President Biden.

national news

Guardians? Really?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

This will take some time to register with me.

Vice President Mike Pence has announced that members of the newly created U.S. Space Force will be called “guardians.”

That’s right. They will be called guardians the way the Army refers to soldiers, the Navy has its sailors, the Air Force has airmen, the Marines have, um, Marines and the Coast Guard has Coast Guardsmen.

The Space Force deploys guardians to defend us against … what? Extraterrestrials such as Martians or the Man in the Moon?

As Politico reports: “It is my honor on behalf of the president of the United States to announce that henceforth the men and women of the United States Space Force will be known as guardians,” Pence told an audience at the White House.

Look, I wasn’t high on the formation of a Space Force anyway. The Air Force already has a Space Command and was doing a stellar job of protecting us from missiles launched by hostile nations, let alone invaders from deep space.

I’m waiting for the first president of the United States say during a speech how he or she will honor the service of our “soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, Coast Guardsmen and guardians.”