Monthly Archives: November 2020

national news

Do as he says, not as he does

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Not good, Mr. Mayor.

Denver Mayor Michael Hancock made an impassioned plea to his constituents: Stay home over the Thanksgiving holiday to avoid spreading the COVID virus that’s still killing Americans.

Good advice? Sure it is.

What, then, did Hizzoner do? He boarded an airplane to fly to Mississippi to visit with family members.

Ouch, Mr. Mayor. C’mon, man. If you’re going to tell your constituents to do something that could save their lives, you need to set the example for others to follow.

He apologized to Denver’s residents. Hey, I am not one of them, but I accept his apology. Just do better from now on … OK?

 

economic news

OMB pick draws fire

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Neera Tanden wants to become the next head of the Office of Management and Budget in the Joe Biden administration.

But wait a minute. She’s running into some serious headwinds from Senate Republicans. Why? Well, it seems that she has been highly critical of GOP policymakers and policies, and of course of Donald Trump, the guy Biden defeated to become the nation’s next president.

I’ll be candid. Biden’s decision to select Tanden does puzzle me. She has been a sharp-tongued pundit. I really don’t know about her budgetary experience. Not only that, the president-elect’s pledge to “unify” the country seems at odds with the selection of a sharp partisan, such as Neera Tanden.

She runs a progressive think tank, the Center for American Progress. Tanden could be seen and heard throughout the Biden-Trump campaign blasting Donald Trump to smithereens. To be blunt, I have no problem with what she said about Trump.

I do have a problem with an appointment such as hers and whether it is faithful to President-elect Biden’s pledge to heal the wounds that have divided us.

national news

Trump’s petulance persists

Donald Trump is taking post-election petulance to levels never seen before.

He keeps insisting he won an election he lost. Trump continues to challenge the legitimacy of a legitimate election that chose President-elect Joe Biden over the incumbent president. He said he’ll leave the White House “if” the Electoral College certifies Biden’s victory … knowing full well the Electoral College is going to do precisely that.

Now comes the best part of all: He might announce a 2024 presidential candidacy as Biden becomes President Biden on Inauguration Day.

Good grief. The guy cannot stop making a spectacle and an ass of himself.

But the good news is that Jan. 20 marks the end of the Trump Era and the beginning of the Biden Era. Let the healing begin.

national news

Imagine this happening … now!

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

The picture you see here was taken in late 2008.

President-elect Barack Obama came to the Oval Office to meet with the man he would succeed, President George W. Bush, and three other fellows with intimate knowledge of the office: Presidents George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter.

President Bush 43 offered his support and good wishes to the new president. All of these men had lunch together that day and the former presidents shared with the new guy some of the wisdom they acquired while making difficult decisions.

I won’t belabor the point, but just try to imagine …

Donald Trump inviting the man who would succeed him, President-elect Joe Biden, to the Oval Office along with the four living former presidents, Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter.

I know. It’s way beyond anything you could ever see happening.

media news, national news

Hoping to eradicate an ‘e-word’

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I suppose you could surmise that there is a virtually endless array of things I anticipate with the inauguration of Joe Biden as our next president of the United States.

One of those things is the elimination of certain epithets we hear far too often from the man he will succeed, Donald J. Trump.

I want to discuss one of them briefly here. That would be the term “enemy.”

Joe Biden is wired entirely differently than Donald Trump.

Biden has said categorically and without equivocation that political foes are not enemies. He has worked through many decades in public service seeking compromise with politicians from the other party. He works well with Republicans while being what he calls himself as being a “proud Democrat.”

The president-elect understands that effective legislation quite often is the result of compromise. He doesn’t see the GOP as comprising enemies. They merely are opponents. Donald Trump exhibited an all-too-often and annoying tendency to cast his foes as enemies.

Indeed, he infamously referred to the media as the “enemy of the American people.” My goodness, it is no such thing. Previous presidents have been made uncomfortable by harsh questions posed by the media. None of them to my knowledge ever referred to reporters as anyone’s “enemy.”

I expect to see President Biden restore the sense of respect we all can have for those with whom we disagree. I also expect to see him eradicate the careless and reckless use of the word “enemy” within the White House.

national news

Trump goes 0-for-forever in his losing fight

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Donald Trump got his litigation head handed to him once again.

This time it was a Pennsylvania court that said to the president: No can do on your effort to overturn an election result.

Good grief. Trump is in the middle of a monstrous losing streak.

I think he’s zero for 35 … or something like that. Still, The Donald ain’t giving up, at least not publicly. I keep hearing that privately every one of his top aides, Cabinet hands, family members are talking among themselves. They are saying it’s over.

Someone needs to get to the man who keeps yapping about an election he lost bigly.

national news

Waiting for the pageantry

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I am a sucker for pageantry. I love military parades. I love patriotic music. I even get caught up in pomp and circumstance.

It’s especially true when it comes to presidential inaugurations. I guess you’ve heard but we have one of those coming up. It’s fewer than 60 days from today.

President Joe Biden will take office. His wife, Jill, will hold a Bible and Chief Justice John Roberts will instruct the president to recite 35 words contained in the presidential oath.

The pageantry will be immense, even if it’s scaled back. The coronavirus pandemic is likely to inhibit the crowd size that will be gathered before the new president and the former presidents who will be there to witness his moment of pageantry.

The absence of President Biden’s immediate predecessor won’t inhibit the majesty of the moment. I don’t expect to see Donald Trump there, given that he won’t acknowledge that Biden actually beat the stuffing out of him in the Nov. 3 election.

So what if he takes a pass? No big shakes for me, to be honest.

I am going to focus my attention on the new team, led by a new president, who will seek to right the ship of state that has been listing badly for the past four years.

Yes, the lunacy of the campaign, the tragedy of the pandemic, the chaos associated with the transition will do nothing to distract me from the pageantry and majesty that awaits as we welcome a new president and vice president.

I’ll make an admission, too. I am likely to shed a tear or two as Vice President Kamala Harris and President Joe Biden receive these words once they take their oaths: “Congratulations, Mme. Vice President” and “Congratulations, Mr. President.”

Yep, the pageantry gets me every time.

national news

Trump goes out as he came in: amid chaos

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Donald J. Trump is going out in a blizzard of incoherence, which to my memory reminds me of how he entered the presidency.

He was willfully ignorant of what it took to take the reins of government. He never learned a thing. Now he’s exiting the White House on Jan. 20 while offering a mysterious string of incoherent rants.

For instance, he said he will leave D.C. “if” the Electoral College certifies that President-elect Biden won the election on Nov 3. Whaddya mean “if,” dude? The Electoral College is going to certify Joe Biden as the winner, and a clear winner at that! His margin of actual vote victory is widening daily, surpassing 6 million ballots. The Electoral College count stands at 306-232, with Biden over Trump. Period. End of story.

Oh, but wait. Now comes Trump saying that he would leave the White House if Biden can prove that the 80 million-plus votes he has racked up came about legitimately. That they were all legally cast votes.

Huh? Hey, Donald, I have news for you. The states that have certified the results have declared they all are legal, free and fair votes. They say without hesitation that there is no “widespread” voter fraud. There isn’t even any minuscule voter fraud, they say. These are election professionals who know what they are doing, unlike the lame-duck make-believe president who has been in over his head from the moment he took the oath in January 2017.

Donald Trump is leaving the White House no later than Jan. 20. I am rolling around in my head the idea that he might depart before then, forgoing the niceties associated with attending his successor’s inaugural. I mean, if he’s going to refuse to acknowledge that President-elect Biden, what’s the point of him and Melania even bothering to show up?

I only can imaging what might happen as he and the first lady step aboard Marine One for the flight away from the Capitol. It might get real ugly.

Chaos reigns supreme at the end of the Trump Era, just as reigned at its beginning. Who knew?

local news

Go slower out there!

BLOGGER’S NOTE — This blog was posted initially on KETR-FM’s website, KETR.org. 

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Princeton City Councilman Mike Robertson is a man after my own heart … speedwise.

He wants to slow motorists down as they travel along U.S. Highway 380, at least while they’re traveling within the city limits.

Robertson is pitching a notion to slow motorists down to 40 mph within the city limits. Currently, the limits vary, from 45, to 50 to 60 mph.

The Princeton Herald is covering this story and it quoted Robertson, thusly: “It doesn’t make any sense to keep such a high speed limit through town.” Yeah. Do you think?

Indeed, U.S. 380 often is clogged with stop-and-go traffic during much of the day. It’s a busy thoroughfare that coarses through the fast-growing community.

The city, though, has limited options. It cannot act on its own because U.S. 380 is maintained by the Texas Department of Transportation, according to the Princeton Herald, which reported: “The city does not have the authority to reduce the speed, however, it has taken measures to slow down traffic within city limits with one new stoplight and they are working on installing a second light.”

Indeed, the addition of signals comports with what City Manager Derek Borg told me about a year ago as we discussed the traffic issues along U.S. 380. Borg is acutely aware of the traffic snarls that occur along the highway and thinks the increased traffic signals, among other things, will help motorists seeking to enter the highway from side streets.

I believe Councilman Robertson is onto something. In fact, when I see the Herald each week, I look at the police blotter section on Page 2 … and what do I see? I often see several instances of “major auto accidents” along U.S. 380. The blotter entry doesn’t designate whether they are speed-related. My strong hunch is that, well, many of them are related to motorists traveling too rapidly along a busy thoroughfare choked with other motor vehicles.

The Herald reports that TxDOT is “receptive” to the idea of slowing vehicles down, but notes any action might require some time for a change to be made official.

Whatever you do, don’t drag your feet, TxDOT. I am one motorist and Princeton resident who backs a councilman’s request to slow the traffic down.

national news

Go ahead, Mr. POTUS … pardon yourself

5 Comments

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I am going to make a suggestion that might surprise readers of this blog, which is that I believe Donald Trump ought to try to pardon himself for crimes he might have committed.

Would such a pardon be legal? Is it constitutional? Who in the name of juris prudence actually knows for certain? Hey, so go ahead, Mr. President, give it a try.

A presidential self-pardon could do a couple of things to Trump’s political future that he wouldn’t like. It would brand him forever as someone who is likely guilty of whatever crime he might  have committed. The acceptance of a pardon is an implied admission of guilt, right? Well, that’s how I see it … along with many legal and constitutional scholars.

Newsweek reported: On Thursday, CNN political commentator S.E. Cupp weighed in, saying pardon power should be reformed and Trump granting himself clemency would make him look guilty.

“If the president has designs on running again for president, this would certainly imperil that, and I would think encourage other justice departments to really look at what he had done while in office if he is tacitly admitting he needed to be pardoned for stuff,” Cupp said.

Therefore, if Trump is thinking about running for president in 2024, he will have to explain to Americans how someone who in effect admits to commit crimes can run for the office he lost in 2020? Oh, wait! I forgot that he wouldn’t have to persuade gullible GOP primary voters who think he’s the bee’s knees already, even though he has trashed the presidency, lied through his teeth repeatedly to everyone and made a mockery of every norm associated with the nation’s highest office.

The rest of us? Well, that’s another issue.

I don’t think it’s going to get that far, to be honest. I have serious doubts that Trump is going to run again for POTUS, but that’s just me, you know?

If a self-pardon is ruled to be illegal or unconstitutional were he to actually do it, Trump would face being called a dimwitted dipsh** who thought he could pull a fast one on the federal judiciary. But, hey, I already think that of him as it stands right now. Maybe others might catch on, too.

So, go ahead and give it a shot, Donald. Let’s see what this would do to your “brand.”