Category Archives: national news

national news

Welcome back, Barack Obama

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I feel obliged to say how glad I am to hear former President Obama’s voice once again as the nation continues its political discussion and debate.

He is critical of Donald J. Trump. No surprise there, right?

What is a surprise is that Trump’s immediate predecessor has weighed in now, at the end of Trump’s term as president. Then again, maybe it should not be such a surprise.

Trump spent a good bit of emotional capital during his term as president trashing the record compiled by President Obama. He took every chance he could find to denigrate Obama’s record, to declare his intention to undo the accomplishments Obama rang up.

The Affordable Care Act? Obama’s record on renewable energy development? Obama’s agreeing to join the Paris Climate Accords? Trump called them all a “disaster.”

So now it’s President Obama’s turn to strike back. Yes, the norm has been for former presidents to sit in a corner and let his immediate successor rise or fall on his own. Obama did that very thing during much of Trump’s term. No longer.

Welcome back, Mr. President. I enjoy hearing your voice.

national news

Once a ‘landslide,’ now it’s … something else?

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

President-elect Biden is closing in on an 80-million vote election victory. They’re still counting ballots, but the new president is about to cross an amazing threshold.

He’s already won an Electoral College victory, which all by itself puts him in the victor’s circle. Biden has 306 electoral votes; Donald Trump has 232 electoral votes.

Sound familiar? It should. Trump won in 2016 over Hillary Clinton by the same Electoral College margin. Four years ago, Trump called it a “landslide.” It wasn’t. Neither is the Biden victory over Trump this time. It is a substantial victory nonetheless, which I am certain just rankles Donald Trump to no end.

Too … bad, Donald.

But the actual vote is impressive. Biden has set a record for the number of ballots. Trump, too, has set a record for the most votes collected by the losing candidate. They’re both impressive totals.

One of them, though, is the winner. That would be Joe Biden.

It gives me reason to smile as they keep counting the ballots.

national news

Fan of private space missions

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I never thought I ever would say what I am about to say.

Which is that I have become a fan of privately financed space travel.

You see, I am a huge fan of NASA, the government’s space agency. NASA has been front and center of the nation’s space program. It led the nation in its race with the Soviet Union to see which of the two superpowers would be the first to put human beings on the moon.

We won that race, thanks to NASA.

The United States isn’t sending astronauts into space these days aboard U.S.-government-financed rockets. We are relying on the Russians to ferry astronauts to the International Space Station.

We also are flying astronauts into orbit aboard Space X rockets, developed and financed by a fellow named Elon Musk, the guy whose company makes Tesla automobiles.

I am thrilled to the max watching the Space X rockets blast off from the launch pad at Cape Canaveral, Fla. Space X this week sent another crew to the ISS. The launch was perfect. The docking of the ship with the ISS also was done to perfection.

Make no mistake that I still hope for a return of U.S. government-sponsored space missions. I am awaiting development of a ship that will take Americans to Mars. I hope to live long enough to watch that mission unfold.

Until then, I will continue to cheer the feats of the crews launched into space by Elon Musk’s rockets.

Man, space travel continues to amaze me, even in this age of private sponsorship of rockets that send American astronauts into space.

national news

Optimism taking a hit

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I am by nature an optimist. Really, it’s true!

Thus, I have sought to maintain an optimistic outlook as President-elect Biden seeks to form a government even while Donald Trump has refused to accept what we all know what occurred on Nov. 3.

Biden defeated Trump. His vote margin is approaching 6 million ballots. Biden’s electoral vote margin sits at 306-232. My hope has been all along that Biden could form a government and begin the task of “restoring our national soul” while unifying a badly divided nation.

Events of the past 10 days or so are testing my optimistic instincts.

Trump is fomenting the Big Lie that the election was rigged. It was nothing of the sort. Yet polling suggests that roughly 30 percent of American voters believe the lame-duck president’s ridiculous and dangerous assertion about “widespread” voter fraud.

This puts Biden’s mission of reunification in potentially dire peril. He pledges to be the president of “all Americans.” He said that “even if you voted for President Trump,” Biden will be your president, too. How can that be a bad thing? Did we hear such a proclamation from Donald Trump when he took office? He did pledge to unify the nation, but then embarked on a strategy that aimed to please only the base of supporters who have hung with him throughout his term.

I still am cautiously optimistic that the president-elect will be able to formally “transition” into the nation’s highest office. However, “cautiously” is becoming more important as I express my hope for that outcome.

Donald Trump’s petulance has grown into a dangerous gambit that threatens us at many levels. It is endangering a new president’s noble pledge to restore our national soul and bridge the partisan chasm that divides the nation he was elected to govern.

My optimistic nature is being strained. I hope the stress and strain doesn’t break it.

national news

Wanting a ‘normal’ and ‘boring’ POTUS

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I cannot in good conscience take credit for thinking of this, but I have no problem repeating it here.

I am waiting anxiously for a return to a “boring” U.S. presidency.

Donald Trump’s term has been fraught with anxiety at almost every level imaginable. What in the world is this guy going to say via Twitter? Who will he fire? What policy statement will be fire off without consulting with anyone other than his innards? Who is he going to pi** off with a reckless tweet?

Those days are soon to be behind us. President-elect Biden will become President Biden on Jan. 20 and soon — as in immediately — my hope is that we return to a normal presidency. One that includes sane political judgment based on same political discussion.

Whereas the current president came from the world of business where he was his own boss and didn’t answer to anyone, the new president comes from the world of government. That’s where the people — you and I — are the collective boss. We call the shots. We did so with the election, deciding we had enough of the turbulence, tumult and tempest that accompanied damn near everything that Donald Trump did.

I am so ready for a return to what we used to think of as “normal” behavior from our head of state.

national news

Revenge firings … that’s what they are!

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Donald John Trump has taken the “art” of revenge firing to a despicable new low.

The outgoing president of the United States decided to fire the man he hired to make our election more secure for — are you ready for this? — declaring that the 2020 presidential election is the safest and most secure in U.S. history.

What’s more, Department of Homeland Security official Christopher Krebs got word of his firing via Twitter, which is Trump’s modus operandi for issuing these policy pronouncements.

All Krebs did was issue a statement that runs diametrically counter to Trump’s narrative, which is that President-elect Biden won the election because it is “rigged.” Trump is hollering about “widespread voter fraud” where none exists. Krebs had the temerity to say as much in his statement to the world.

So now he’s gone. Trump has hired another lackey to take Krebs’s place … and the phony narrative will continue to fester on the public stage.

Hey, I realize I said I would concentrate on Joe Biden’s developing presidency rather than worry about what’s left of Trump’s term in office. I just cannot let this shameful example of vengeance go unnoticed. So there.

national news

Biden enters office with loads of credibility

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

President-elect Biden’s efforts to transition from private citizen to the highest public office in the nation has been difficult to watch from afar.

Donald Trump keeps trying to stymie his successor’s efforts to reach full speed on domestic, scientific and foreign policy matters.

However, I am going to take some comfort in the knowledge that Biden brings to the presidency owing to his nearly five decades in public service.

The president-elect served 36 years in the U.S. Senate before becoming vice president in 2009. During that time in the Senate he chaired the Foreign Relations and Judiciary committees for a total of 24 years. He built friendships and assorted professional and political relationships with hundreds of folks in this country and abroad.

Biden hasn’t yet received the kind of high-level briefing afforded customarily to presidents-elect, but he is able to reach beyond normal channels to experts from around the world for advice and  counsel.

The president-elect’s years of experience in public service will serve him well as he takes office, even if he is unable to obtain the kind of cooperation that outgoing president’s usually offer.

My hope springs eternal that eventually Donald Trump will put the country’s interests first and allow the transition to proceed as it should.

If that hope is never realized, I am going to believe that President-elect Joe Biden will be able to parlay his vast experience into an effective presidency … even as he struggles to get our new government up to speed.

national news

Mask-wearing: not a political statement

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, whom I have dubbed the Cruz Missile, is demonstrating once again why I dislike him so intensely.

He decided to describe his fellow senator, Democrat Sherrod Brown of Ohio, as acting “like a complete ass” because Brown insisted that the senator presiding over the body wear a mask.

Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan of Alaska was without a mask when he presided. Brown wanted him to put one one, believing that he posed a potential threat of infecting other senators, given that they were meeting in an enclosed room, aka the Senate chamber.

As The Hill reported: “This is idiotic,” Cruz tweeted Monday night, adding that Brown “is being a complete ass. He wears a mask to speak – when nobody is remotely near him – as an ostentatious sign of fake virtue.”

No, Ted. Your colleague is acting out what some have referred to as an “abundance of caution” in light of the pandemic that continues to kill Americans at an alarming rate each day. Perhaps he has read about it; this pandemic’s been in all the papers, man.

Cruz is now being discussed as a possible 2024 GOP presidential candidate. Hmm. His theme well might be: Wear a mask and be an ass.

national news

Focusing now on Joe Biden

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I want to make two quick points, then I’ll step aside.

First, I have declared that Donald Trump is sliding rapidly into irrelevancy as a defeated candidate for re-election as president of the United States.

Therefore, I am going to spend equally rapidly declining effort commenting on his still-incessant lying.

Second, this blog is going to concentrate instead on President-elect Joe Biden’s transition into the nation’s highest office. I want to offer him advice when I feel I can provide it. I might even scold him if he says or does something that displeases me. Hey, no one is perfect … you know?

It’s time for High Plains Blogger to turn the proverbial page.

Thus, I have just done so.

Good night.

national news

Putin is laughing his a** off

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Do you know who among all the world leaders is laughing so hard he is having trouble catching his breath?

It has to be Russian strongman/despot/dictator/former Soviet spy chief Vladimir Putin. That’s who.

Think of it. His boy, Donald Trump, lost his re-election bid for a second term as U.S. president. Trump is refusing to concede to President-elect Joe Biden. He is withholding national security information from the new president’s team. He is fighting the results in courts all over the place; and he’s getting them tossed by judges.

Trump is sowing seeds of discord in our electoral system.

Isn’t that precisely what Putin sought to do in 2016? And again in 2020? Isn’t this kind of activity that former special counsel Robert Mueller III warned us would happen?

Trump is fabricating a story where none exists.

And yet Vladimir Putin must be laughing his keister off as he watches from the Kremlin while Trump continues this ridiculous effort to undermine a political system he took a sacred oath to defend and protect.

I do hope the new president is taking plenty of notes and will get Putin on the phone soon and read him the riot act, warning him of serious consequences for his interference in our electoral system.