Category Archives: national news

national news

Biden setting cooler, calmer tone

1 Comment

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

A nation that has endured one of the most contentious, nastiest and falsehood-filled presidential campaigns in history is now being treated to a transition that occurs with one of the principals doing what he must do.

The other one is stonewalling. Why? Because he is alleging voter fraud that likely doesn’t exist.

President-elect Joe Biden has selected his White House chief of staff. Ron Klain is a longtime Biden confidant with vast experience in government operations. Klain now becomes the point man who will guide the president-elect to selecting his Cabinet and his key White House aides and advisers.

The other guy is the president of the United States, Donald Trump, who lost his bid for re-election by a significant and growing margin. Trump is going out with the same raucousness he exhibited when he took office four years ago.

Yes, Trump has been quiet in terms of his relentless tweeting habit. His stonewalling on the transition, though, puts the nation in potential national security peril. Donald Trump’s team won’t share intelligence briefings with the new president’s team, disallowing them access to information it will need as it prepares to plot strategies for guarding against potential threats from hostile nations.

So we’re left with a president-elect who is proceeding with a transition the way he normally would do it with a predecessor who is willing to cooperate fully.

To be candid, the manner that President-elect Joe Biden is employing to take office is far more preferable than the manner that Donald Trump is using to surrender it.

I believe we are witnessing in real time the differences in the way these men govern.

national news

Remain silent, Mr. POTUS

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

If you put your ear to the ground and demand complete silence around you, then you’re likely to hear something quite pleasant.

That would be the absence of any yammering from the White House.

You see, Donald John Trump is a lame-duck president who has remained quiet as the world watches President-elect Joseph Biden Jr. begin preparing for the biggest job on Earth.

Why is this worth mentioning? Because I am sick, tired and disgusted beyond measure with the incessant bitching, griping and insult from Donald Trump’s Twitter account.

I grew weary early on with his daily appearances in the White House press room in which he would misstate the pandemic crisis that continues to kill Americans every single day.

He’s not doing that these days. Trump is busying himself with lawsuits that alleged “widespread voter fraud” in states he lost to Biden. The litigation will go nowhere. Then the 45th president will be on  his way back to Mar-a-Lago, turning the White House over to No. 46, who can begin to repair the damage that Trump has brought to the presidency.

For now I intend to relish the silence from Donald Trump.

national news

Biden set to select top-tier administration team

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

There are seemingly countless ways to measure why Joe Biden’s election as president will be vastly superior to Donald Trump’s election four (oh, so long) years ago.

One of them likely will be the quality of the individuals with whom the new president will surround himself.

Does anyone, for instance, really expect Vice President Kamala Harris to cast a tie-breaking vote in the U.S. Senate to confirm the selection of a Cabinet secretary? That’s what happened when Education Secretary Betsy DeVos faced the Senate at the beginning of Trump’s term.

Do you think President Biden is going to rely on family members with no government experience to, oh, work on Middle East peace, or perform other myriad foreign-policy tasks? That’s what we’ve had with presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner at the helm of Daddy-in-law Trump’s foreign policy apparatus.

Is there a chance that President Biden is going to install his daughter Ashley as a “senior policy adviser”?

The difference between Trump and Biden cannot be more stark than in examining their pre-presidential experience. Trump came from the world of business and entertainment. Biden is steeped in government, public policy and public service.

Trump had zero government connections when he took office; Biden’s address book is chock full of them.

With all that laid out there, I look forward to watching the president-elect choose his team and assessing the quality of its members. I also look forward to evaluating them on the basis of their experience in government or whatever policy the president will ask them to oversee.

The team that is exiting the scene has been sorely lacking in the know-how required to operate a massive federal government.

national news

Biden’s patience gets tested

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I am going to presume that everyone – and I mean every single human being – has his or her limit on the amount of nonsense/malarkey/bullsh** they can take.

President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. is, um, one of those human beings. He currently is enduring what is certainly an unprecedented example of bad behavior from an individual who has just lost a presidential election. That would be, of course. Donald John Trump.

Joe Biden is proceeding apace with his transition into the presidency. He is doing so without a single lick of cooperation from Trump, who tradition suggests would offer his successor all the perks of the office to ensure a seamless, orderly transfer of power.

But … ohhh, no. That ain’t happening! Trump has decided so far that he won’t concede. Nor will he offer the president-elect any sort of help. Some of that refusal, I hasten to add, includes matters of vital national security.

Tradition tells us that the outgoing president offers the new president access to top-secret information. The president-elect usually is given daily presidential briefings, the kind of thing that supposedly occurs with the current president; except that Donald Trump can’t be bothered/bored with DPBs. Joe Biden isn’t wired that way. He is steeped in government, owing to his 36 years in the U.S. Senate and eight years as vice president.

Joe Biden is saying publicly that he is proceeding with the transition as if everything is just fine. But it isn’t. It’s not even close to being just fine.

That brings me back the beginning of this blog. Everyone has his or her limits.

I am going to hope that President-elect Biden’s limit far exceeds the kind of limit I would bring to this matter were I involved.

President-elect Joe Biden’s mind and heart are comforted, I am quite certain, by the inevitable arrival of Inauguration Day … at which time we can say “so long and don’t let the door hit you in the … “ you know, to Donald Trump.

national news

Give it up, Mr. POTUS

1 Comment

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

OK, Mr. President, I have resisted directing my remarks directly to you.

I get that you don’t listen to anyone, let alone actually read this blog. I just have to get something off my chest.

Let me be crystal clear: You lost the election to Joe Biden. I get that you decided long ago to toss aside tradition. I remember what you said about being an “unconventional” candidate and president. Boy howdy, you’ve kept that promise, even as you have trashed the office you inherited.

This idiocy you are fomenting about an electoral theft that didn’t occur is dangerous, it is shameful, it embarrasses this nation around the world. You are putting the nation’s security at risk by refusing to give the president-elect the briefings he deserves as the next commander in chief.

Oh, and your decision to fire Defense Secretary Mark Esper — through a Twitter message, no less — is yet another example of the ghastly manner you choose to govern.

I make no apology to anyone for my loathing of you as a person, let alone as president of the United States. I have been blasting you to smithereens since the moment you rode down that escalator at Trump Tower with Melania at your side.

I want you out of sight and out of mind. I want you to vacate my house at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. I want you to accept the result of the defeat you suffered.

Don’t you get it? A clear majority of American voters are sick and tired of your yammering, your petulance, your boorishness.

Get the hell out of the way and let the new team take over.

There. Now I feel better. It won’t do a damn bit of good, other than to assuage my intense anger at the way you are behaving.

Good fu**ing riddance … Donald!

national news

Outrageous reaction to electoral loss

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

The English language has few words that adequately express the feelings that boil up inside me as I watch Donald Trump and his minions challenge the results of a free and fair presidential election.

Now we hear from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who denies that President-elect Joe Biden defeated Trump. Pompeo says he is planning to work in a “second Trump administration.”

Earth to Mike: There will be no “second Trump administration.” Trump lost the election. The court system will not back up the specious complaints that Trump is leveling that that the election was “stolen” from him. Donald Trump will have to face the reality that President-elect Biden defeated him handily — both in the ballots cast and in the Electoral College.

It is outrageous in the extreme that Republicans continue to stand behind a president who has lost an election.

As for Trump, he is inflicting untold damage to the very fabric of the democratic system of elections. He is challenging the integrity of a system he took an oath four years to defend and protect … for God’s sake!

We are witnessing an outrage of epic proportions, not just from the outgoing president, but from those who are endorsing his foolishness.

national news

Legislating involves compromise

(AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Yeah, I know … nothing about Mitch McConnell should surprise me.

Still, the message from the U.S. Senate majority leader given his longstanding relationship with President-elect Biden does raise my eyebrows.

McConnell is giving credence to the idiotic conspiracy theory being kicked out by Donald J. Trump that illegal voters carried Biden to the presidency. He is digging in his heels on whether to even offer a word of congratulations to the president-elect; McConnell had the chance today during a Senate floor speech to offer a good word to his “friend,” but he choked.

McConnell continues to behave in a manner that gives politics and politicians a bad name. As for Trump, he’s been a lost cause from the moment he rode down the escalator to announce his presidential candidacy. I am so glad he got beat.

I just wish McConnell would recognize the obvious and get behind the president-elect and declare his intention to actually work with Democrats in search of legislation upon which they all agree.

Isn’t that part of the oath he took?

national news

Evangelicals face a reckoning

1 Comment

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

If there is justice lurking in the election returns that have produced a new president of the United States, it well might rest within the evangelical Christian movement.

I now shall explain.

Evangelicals lined up behind Donald J. Trump, a man without even a passing acquaintance with Scripture. He is an admitted philanderer and has acknowledged groping women, grabbing them by their genitals. More than two dozen women have accused him of various forms of sexual assault. He paid a porn star $130,000 to keep quiet about a liaison she said she had with the future president, who also has denied taking the tumble with her during a one-night stand.

They stood with him as he sought re-election. Trump lost that campaign, however, to Joe Biden, a practicing Catholic — the second Catholic ever elected president.

President-elect Biden is devoted to his faith. He attends Mass regularly. The president-elect has suffered unimaginable pain through death. He has buried two of his children, one an infant, the other an adult. His infant daughter died in a car accident that also killed his first wife and grievously injured his two sons.

The president-elect has proclaimed repeatedly over the span of time that his faith in God and his belief in eternal salvation carried him through his grief.

Still, the evangelical movement stood with the alleged sexual assailant and admitted philanderer.

Yes, if there is justice in these election returns, it should present itself with the evangelical Christian movement looking deeply into its political alliance with someone many of us consider to be downright evil.

national news

Incoherence anyone?

2 Comments

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I cannot possibly be the only person who thought this, but I’ll offer this brief observation anyway.

Donald Trump refuses to concede the election to President-elect Joe Biden, saying the election is “far from over.” He is filing lawsuits and challenging the results of an election that shows Biden leading with 5 million more ballots and a substantial Electoral College majority.

Got that? Now, then there’s this:

Donald Trump has told advisers and others close to him that he is considering whether to run for president in 2024.

When I heard that I went, huh? What? Eh? Which is it?

If he’s thinking about running in 2024, isn’t that a tacit admission that he lost the 2020 contest?

Therefore, what we are seeing from Donald Trump and his team is an incoherent, unhinged and baseless legal “strategy” that pretends to seek proof that the election was “rigged,” that it is “corrupt” and that millions of voters cast ballots “illegally.”

That well might sum up the presidency of Donald John Trump Sr. to the letter. 

national news

A ‘sucker’ is revealed

1 Comment

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

OK, it’s time for an admission.

I admit to being a sucker for what I had hoped would be a realization from Donald Trump — had circumstances dictated it — that he would bow out of the presidency with relative silence.

Not with class, dignity, decorum and grace, mind you. I thought he would simply say that “Joe Biden won; I lost. I will accept that and go on my way.” That’s all he had to say.

Donald Trump hasn’t said even that.

Oh, no. He is filing lawsuits left and right in states all across the country. He hasn’t called Biden to congratulate him. As a friend reminded me today, Trump hasn’t yet allowed the new president access to national security briefings, which is essential for a smooth transition from one presidency to the next one.

The peaceful transfer of power is likely to occur. I don’t expect there to be gunshots at the White House or on Capitol Hill when Trump leaves office on Jan. 20. What I had hoped for would be a semblance of the kind of traditional ceremony one sees in these moments.

You know what I mean. The Trumps welcoming the Bidens to the White House. The obligatory photo op meeting in the Oval Office. The two men saying publicly how they plan to cooperate. Trump pledging a seamless transition; Biden promising to ask his predecessor for advice as needs arise. The handshakes, the smiles … or what they refer to in newspaper circles as “grip and grin” photos.

We are getting none of that.

I didn’t expect Trump to offer the traditional concession speech. All I thought we might get would be a gritted-teeth admission that he lost.

My goodness, we have gotten none of it!

The impact of this hideous behavior from the lame-duck president could be devastating on our democracy. Nations around the world are going to look at us with even more skepticism as they watch the outgoing president challenge openly the very fabric of our democratic system of government.

My inclination to look for the good in individuals, even those who don’t necessarily deserve it, has been decimated by the behavior of a man about whom I should have known better.

I am ashamed of myself.