Category Archives: national news

national news

Biden lines up many ‘firsts’

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

President-elect Joe Biden keeps rolling out the executive branch lineup he wants to help him govern the nation he was elected to lead. In the main, I find his selections so far to be an impressive collection of folks.

Biden keeps touting all the “firsts” he is asking to serve with him. The first openly gay Cabinet official; the first women to lead the energy and treasury departments; the first Native-American in the Cabinet; the first African-American to run the Pentagon and the Environmental Protection Agency.

He says he wants the executive branch of government to mirror the nation. It looks as though the president-elect is fulfilling that goal.

One of the remarkable aspects of the government he is forming is the number of individuals who struggled as they came of age, found their way into the world. The new interior secretary-designate talked of being homeless as a girl; the new energy secretary nominee told of her grandfather taking his own life because he couldn’t struggle with poverty.

Sure, there are marvelous success stories in the group. There appears to be a marked absence of billionaires of the type that populated the Cabinet that Donald Trump put together when he assumed office four years ago.

The new government in the making is a diverse group, comprising plenty of ethnic and racial minorities, women and men of various backgrounds. Many of them come to the new government with plenty of prior government experience.

Yes, we see a number of hands brought back from President Obama’s two terms in office. The new veterans affairs secretary served as White House chief of staff, the treasury secretary designate led the Fed during the Obama years, the White House chief of staff once filled a similar role for the VP during the Obama years and the climate envoy once served as secretary of state during the Obama administration.

I want to give Joe Biden a bit of credit for bringing back some tried-and-true government hands who played a role in governing during the successful two terms of the Obama administration. Indeed, the president-elect himself is a creature of the government he is now going to lead, serving 36 years in the Senate and eight years as vice president. For that matter, Vice President-elect Kamala Harris served in the U.S. Senate, was attorney general of California and was district attorney in San Francisco County; she, too, is fluent in government-speak and one cannot overstate the value knowing the language.

Americans took a gamble in electing a business mogul as president four years ago. To my way of thinking, it didn’t work out, given Donald Trump’s ignorance of how government works and his unwillingness to learn how to operate its intricate mechanism.

The nation will not have to face that particular issue when Joe Biden takes office as president.

So it is that the new president is crafting a government that resembles the nation. Moreover, it will be populated by those who know how it works, which in itself isn’t a “first.” It merely feels fresh compared to the chaos we have seen during the past four years.

national news

Anxious to bid farewell to miserable year

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

If we’re honest with ourselves and our deepest feelings, we are going to admit that the year that is about to pass into history cannot exit soon enough.

By almost any measure, 2020 has been the uber-pits. It has sucked out loud. We have endured more misery, heartache, grief than in any 12-month period since, oh, possibly forever.

OK, I get that history tells us a different story. The years of the Civil War were hideous in the extreme. World Wars I and II brought a lot of tears to families of service personnel who died in the struggle against tyranny. The Great Depression that occurred between those conflicts created plenty of grief as well. Let us not forget 1968 with its political assassinations and the anger over an unpopular war that spilled into our streets.

This one, though, has so damn few redeeming qualities … except for one, which I will touch on in a moment.

The pandemic has killed hundreds of thousands of Americans and millions around the world. Our national government has failed to protect us against the killer virus and we all hold the person at the top of that chain of command ultimately responsible for the failings.

Our daily routines have been upended. Our children have watched their parents struggle with disease. Yes, the measuring stick we use to gauge the quality of the year we are about to usher out the door is full of too much negativity.

There is hope on the horizon. The vaccines that drug companies have perfected are being fast-tracked onto the market. Two of them have received federal emergency authorization and are being injected into Americans’ arms as I type these words. We mustn’t let our guard down. It will take time for the medicine to kick the crap out of the virus.

And we did elect a new president of the United States in 2020. I am grateful for that outcome. If only that act of democratic wisdom, though, could erase the suffering that preceded it. Sadly, it doesn’t — at least in my view.

I am going to say so long and good riddance to the old year. May we never see its like again.

national news

Get ready for the losers’ mantra

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Let us steel ourselves for what I am certain is going to be an incessant drumbeat from those whose candidate for the presidency in 2020 lost the election … by a lot!

It will go something like this: more than 74 million Americans voted for Donald Trump and our voices deserve to be heard; and voices are going to insist that Joe Biden “stole” the election from our guy.

OK. How does one counter such an argument?

I’ll start by reminding anyone who tosses it at me that President-elect Biden garnered more than 81 million votes. He won with a 51.5 percent majority. Biden collected 7 million more votes than Trump. Biden carried 26 of the 50 states, plus the District of Columbia.

I encourage those Trumpkins out there to spare me the argument that for the past four years, many of the anti-Trump forces reminded everyone that in 2016 Hillary Rodham Clinton won more votes than Trump. I have noted that fact on this blog. I have acknowledged — often in the very next sentence — that Trump won where it counted: in the Electoral College. I know what the U.S. Constitution sets out for the election of a president; I honor it and accept that Trump was elected under the rules set forth by our nation’s founders.

So, the Hillary-won-more-votes-than-Trump argument doesn’t hold up. Nor does it matter one damn bit. The issue today is that President-elect Biden won more actual votes than Trump, he captured more than enough electoral votes than Trump and that every bogus legal challenge that Trump has mounted to overturn the results have been tossed out by every court that has heard them. That includes the U.S. Supreme Court.

The mantra will continue at least for the next four years as President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris seek to repair the damage that Donald Trump inflicted on our democratic process.

I will wait for the bumper stickers to appear as well, although I am not sure how you distill the message of discontent onto a foot-long piece of paper plastered onto a motor vehicle bumper.

Speaking of that, my favorite post-election bumper sticker appeared in the 1970s, about the time President Nixon was being swallowed whole by the Watergate scandal. You’ll recall that Nixon won re-election in 1972 in a historic 49-state landslide. Public opinion turned against the embattled president. Then came the bumper sticker that read: Don’t Blame Me — I’m From Massachusetts … the only state that cast most of its votes in 1972 for George McGovern.

That was then. The here and now presents a whole new set of challenges. One of them likely will be hearing from the losers that their guy didn’t actually lose.

Yeah. He did.

national news

Michael Flynn: moronic notion

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

The man who for 24 days served as national security adviser for Donald J. Trump has come forward with a patently stupid — and treasonous — idea.

Michael Flynn, the pardoned former Army lieutenant general, said that Trump has the authority to call out the troops, dispatch them to various states and actually order them to overturn the election that resulted in Trump’s loss to President-elect Joe Biden.

Is this individual for real? Has he lost what passes for his mind?

Gen. Flynn has actually suggested that Trump — who continues to insist he won an election he actually lost — can mount what amounts to a military coup against the government. That’s if I understand what the former national security adviser has suggested.

“He could order, within the swing states if he wanted to, he could take military capabilities and basically rerun an election each in those states,” Flynn told Newsmax. What the hell? 

Thirty-three days from now, we are getting a new president. His name is Joe Biden. I want to be spared the idiocy that keeps pouring forth from Donald Trump and his cabal of kooks.

national news

Census should count ‘residents,’ not just ‘citizens’

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I concede that I am not a constitutional scholar, but I recognize clear and definitive language contained within the U.S. Constitution when I see it.

For example, the Constitution declares that the census should be taken every 10 years and must count all those who live this country. It doesn’t say “citizens.”

So, the U.S. Supreme Court has decided that a challenge to a Donald Trump administration effort to limit the census count to just citizens doesn’t have merit. Hmm. The court ruling doesn’t make sense to me.

The court ruled 6-3 — with the conservative majority holding firm — that the complaint was “premature.” The decision by the SCOTUS doesn’t preclude any future challenges, just stops this one at this time.

The court’s conservative majority comprises justices I presume to be “originalists,” meaning that they take the founders’ words as written literally. The founders were clear on who should be counted. That’s why they said the census should include all “residents.”

What does this mean? It means that if the Trump exclusion holds up, states — such as Texas, which is home to many thousands of residents who aren’t U.S. citizens — can be denied the congressional representation they deserve. In addition to counting all U.S. residents, we’re going to reapportion the House of Representatives alignment; Texas stands to gain as many as three more House members because of our state’s population growth since 2010.

As ABC News has reported:

Immigrant advocates who sued Trump over the policy stressed that the Court’s move does not mean the fight is over.

“This ruling does not authorize President Trump’s goal of excluding undocumented immigrants from the Census count used to apportion the House of Representatives,” said ACLU attorney Dale Ho. “The legal mandate is clear — every single person counts in the Census, and every single person is represented in Congress. If this policy is ever actually implemented, we’ll be right back in court challenging it.”

Yes, this ruling does involve undocumented immigrants. Indeed, that is the crux of the conservative argument in support  of the Trump exclusion. Let’s not forget to include the so-called “Dreamers” who were brought here as young children by their parents who entered the nation illegally. Those folks once again are being punished unfairly because of something they could not control.

The Supreme Court has punted on this issue for now. My hope would be that judicial conservatives stick to the principle that they believe the founders had it right when they inscribed the method for counting every person who lives in this country.

national news

Stop the phony outrage!

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

The phony outrage and astonishing hypocrisy of Donald Trump’s sycophant brigade just take my breath away.

Here’s the latest.

President-elect Joe Biden’s campaign manager, Jen O’Malley Dillon, referred to Trump’s voter base as a “bunch of fu**ers.” Yep, she dropped an f-bomb on ’em.

Now, is that the way anyone should speak of a political opponent? I don’t like it. Then again, nor do I like the response that has emanated from the righteous right wing of the Republican Party that has turned the other way while Donald Trump has done the following:

Admitted to grabbing women by their genitals; mocked people with disabilities; downplayed a pandemic that has killed more than 300,000 Americans; ignored a cyber attack that threatens our national security; laid waste to the rule of law; damaged our international alliances … and what else? You get the point.

So now some of Trump’s followers are just enraged that a Biden campaign guru dropped an f-bomb?

Steve Schmidt is a former Republican political operative who went on to co-found the Lincoln Project, a political action committee dedicated to defeating Donald Trump’s re-election effort. I will leave it to Schmidt to offer his response to the faux outrage that’s making the rounds.

Steve Schmidt Tells Rubio to F Himself (maxnewstoday.com)

I cannot say it any better.

national news

Get the vaccine, Mr. POTUS!

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Donald Trump says he will receive a vaccination shot to protect him against COVID-19 at the “appropriate time.”

Well, if I might make this suggestion: Right now is the time, Mr. President.

Trump is on his way out of office. However, he remains the one president in charge of our nation’s executive branch of government. That means, as near as I can tell, he is an essential government official. He occupies a position of maximum need.

Vice President Mike Pence is going to get his vaccine on Friday. President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris are getting their vaccines very soon. Dr. Anthony Fauci, our nation’s top infectious disease expert, is urging the president and the president-elect to get vaccinated ASAP.

Listen to the doc — for once! — Mr. President. Now is the time!

national news

Who should stay on?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Presidential transitions occasionally produce parlor games out here in Voter Land, the kind that prompts some of us to wonder: Who might the new president hold over from the administration he is replacing?

Joe Biden is forming his team in fairly rapid succession, despite Donald Trump’s efforts to derail him. I do wonder, though, whether the president-elect would be inclined to ask any member of the Trump team to stay on.

Two names come to mind: FBI Director Christopher Wray and CIA Director Gina Haspel. The rest of ’em? I don’t see any keepers among them.

Wray and Haspel seem to have something in common, despite the obvious commonality, that they were both selected by Trump. They both have fallen out of favor with the current president.

Wray has fairly openly challenged Trump’s assertions about the threat that Russia posed during the election and has asserted that he can find no evidence of widespread voter fraud, the kind that Trump keeps insisting occurred during the election. Haspel has done her job professionally and has kept her spooks in line, preventing them from doing Trump’s dirty work.

They’re both competent professionals. Haspel in particular impresses me, as she was a career deep-cover agent before ascending to the top rungs of the CIA organizational structure. Meanwhile, Wray has stood up for his team of agents in the face of mounting — and unwarranted — criticism from Donald Trump.

I have not a clue whether either of them would be interested in working in a Biden administration. If they do have an interest, I would hope President Biden would consider keeping them on the job.

No need to think of keeping anyone else, all of whom deserve a hasty “b’bye.”

national news

Sure, Donald, deny all you want

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Donald Trump wants us to believe he has nothing to do with a federal investigation into the business dealings of the son of the man who defeated him for re-election.

Do we take the word of the Serial Liar in Chief? Umm, I don’t think so.

Hunter Biden, son of President-elect Joe Biden, has declared that the Internal Revenue Service is investigating his business affairs. He has cooperated with the IRS. Meanwhile, Donald Trump continues to throw up roadblocks to Joe Biden’s transition into the presidency and his minions continue to raise the issue of Hunter Biden’s business dealings, as if to smear his father.

So now we have Donald Trump declare he has nothing to do with the feds investigating Hunter Biden. Do you believe him? Neither do I.

Indeed, I stand by my refusal to take a single thing that comes from Trump’s mouth at face value.

national news

Phenomenal replaces the routine

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

It can be argued, which I will do here, that Donald Trump’s presidential re-election loss has produced one of the most remarkable phenomena in recent memory.

That would be how a simple acknowledgment that the winner of a presidential election is the president-elect can make such news.

So it was the other day when Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell stood on the floor of the Senate and declared that his former Democratic colleague, Joe Biden, was the president-elect of the United States.

McConnell’s acknowledgment of the obvious became news all day.

Who is to blame or credit of this bizarre reaction? Donald Trump! He has sown a narrative that has taken hold among faithful GOP politicians who have signed onto the phony notion that Biden “stole” the election that Trump actually won. Think about this for just a moment.

Courts have ruled repeatedly that no such thievery occurred. Politicians who under normal circumstances would honor judicial opinions now cast aspersions on them. The Senate’s top Republican, ,McConnell, was among the politicians who refused to say publicly what he no doubt knew, which is that Trump lost and that Biden beat him like a drum.

So now we get to watch GOP politicians say — now that the Electoral College has certified the outcome — that Joe Biden is the president-elect. And the media cover it as if it’s really big news. Then again, given the tenor of the times and the suspicion that Donald Trump has created … I guess it is.

Ridiculous.