Monthly Archives: November 2020

national news

C’mon, senator … Biden is ‘president-elect’

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Dang, I was hoping U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn could avoid being sucked into the Republicans’ loony bin caucus when she joined that body in January 2019.

The Tennessee lawmaker, sadly, has swilled the nut job Kool-Aid by authorizing her staff to declare that her reference to Joe Biden as “president-elect” was a misspoken statement.

Good … grief, senator. The president-elect is going to take office in a couple of months. He will be the duly elected president of the United States. I daresay he will be even more “duly elected” than Donald Trump, the Sore Loser in Chief who lost to Biden. Indeed, as Trump yammers about how a “rigged election” put Biden in office, he ignores the actual rigging that occurred in 2016 when Russians conspired to assist The Donald into the White House.

As for Trump’s assertions about this year’s election, it’s crap, senator. It’s pure bullsh** that she and others of the GOP caucus have fomented by their continuing to sow doubt about the election.

There has been no evidence produced — zero! — that suggests “widespread” voter fraud. Still, the GOP lunatics keep enabling Trump to sow doubt and undermine our democratic process.

Sen. Blackburn, sadly, is one of them.

Give it up, Marsha.

national news

This is how you concede, Mr. POTUS

George H.W. Bush 1992 Concession Speech – YouTube

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

The link I have attached to this brief blog post is meant to illustrate how a president of the United States should concede to his opponent.

President George H.W. Bush lost his re-election bid to Bill Clinton.

He stepped aside with class, grace, dignity and as a statesman.

Take note, Donald John Trump. Follow someone else’s lead … for once in your sorry life!

national news

Stay away, Donald

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Presidential inaugurals drip with pageantry, good feelings, a sense of renewal, a beginning.

Yes, even the one that’s coming up. To that end, I want to state something with utmost clarity: I do not want the outgoing president to be anywhere near the U.S. Capitol Building when they swear in President Joseph Robinette Biden Jr.

I want Donald Trump to be far away. He need not be there. The Constitution doesn’t require the outgoing president to be present when the new POTUS takes the oath.

There once was a time when I had hoped Trump would actually accept that he lost, that he would offer a form of an acceptance if not a concession in the normal way. Now, though, even if he does any of that, it will be tainted by the memory of what we have witnessed as Trump has sought to undermine the president-elect’s clearly defined victory.

Trump sought to persuade state lawmakers to overturn the results of an election in their state. He did so today with Michigan legislative leaders; the Michiganders didn’t take the bait. Trump now reportedly is going to seek to sway Pennsylvania Republican legislators to do what Michigan GOP officials declined to do.

So, with that I want to declare that Donald Trump will not be welcomed at President Biden’s inauguration. Imagine when the public address announcer tells us that the president has just arrived on the stage where Biden will take his oath. He is likely to be booed off the stage.

Trump wants to be loved. He won’t get any love on Jan. 20. Do you think President Biden would thank him for his service to the country? Do you believe the new president should offer a kind word to this guy after all he has said about his successor? Or his family?

So, with that, just stay he hell away … Donald. You have no need to be there. Just go away. And stay away.

legal news, State news

Texas AG feels the heat

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Ken Paxton is supposed to be fixated solely on the nuts and bolts of his job as Texas attorney general.

He isn’t focused on those details. Instead, he is looking over his shoulder at a reported FBI investigation into whether he broke the law by handing out favors to a political donor.

I consider these questions to be a debilitating factor that takes the AG’s eyes off the mission, which is to represent the state on myriad legal matters.

A number of Paxton’s key AG’s office legal eagles have asked the federal government to examine whether the attorney general has committed criminal acts. They have either resigned, put on leave or been fired by the attorney general.

At least one major Texas newspaper, the Dallas Morning News, has called on Paxton to resign immediately. The Morning News contends that Paxton no longer can serve effectively as the state’s top law enforcement officer, based on the federal investigation that reportedly has commenced and on the state trial on securities fraud that is still pending.

Indeed, it is impossible in my view for the attorney general to work on behalf of the state while the FBI presumably is looking high and low to determine whether there is anything to the allegations that the AG’s top aides have raised.

I get the part about the presumption of innocence. However, the cloud is darkening over Paxton and his tenure as attorney general.

At issue is whether Paxton intervened on legal matters involving Nate Paul, a major donor to Paxton’s campaigns. Paxton’s aides suggest he broke the law; their complaints involve allegations of bribery.

This isn’t going down well with many of Paxton’s fellow Republicans. Some have called the allegations “concerning.” Others have said Paxton should quit.

The drama is going to play out eventually, or one should hope.

Texas needs an AG who isn’t sullied by these types of questions.

Thus, you can count me as one who continues to believe Ken Paxton should resign.

national news

Impeachment? Old news!

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

When the U.S. of Representatives impeached Donald Trump in late 2019, I was certain that we had just witnessed the rough draft of the first line of Trump’s obituary.

It would read: Donald Trump, the 45th president of the United States and the third president impeached by the House …

Silly me. I didn’t envision that the draft would be rewritten by what we are witnessing now in real time, which is the undermining by the defeated president of the Constitution he took an oath to defend and protect.

It now might read: Donald Trump, 45th president of the United States who sought to challenge the validity of a free and fair election that resulted in his defeat for re-election to a second term … 

How might that hold up? Well, I don’t know. We have another 60 or so days to go before President-elect Biden takes the oath as the nation’s 46th president. There’s still more time for Biden’s predecessor to something really foolish, reckless or maybe even illegal!

I am heartened by the reality that looms just down the road, which is that Joe Biden will become President Biden at noon on Jan. 20. There is nothing Trump can do to forestall that event from occurring. President Biden will take the oath, accept the congratulations from Chief Justice John Roberts, hug and kiss his wife, children and grandchildren; they all will take part in an inaugural parade.

Then the president will enter the Oval Office and get to work.

Trump, meanwhile, will recede into the background. He won’t be silent. He won’t go quietly. Trump will have played out all his limited number of options. He’ll be gone.

That obituary remains to be written. Indeed, I wish him a long post-presidency life. Donald Trump needs to hear and see how history will chronicle the mess he left for his successor to clean up and repair.

The impeachment we all endured seems so long ago. It has become old news, thanks to the tactics Trump is using to undermine our democratic process.

I don’t think it can get any more significant than that. Then again, we are dealing with a man who is capable of damn near anything to hold onto power.

More to come … aack!

national news

Hey, it could be worse

(DoD photo by Senior Master Sgt. Thomas Meneguin, U.S. Air Force/Released)

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Oh, the agony of watching this presidential transition wiggle and writhe as Donald Trump refuses to concede he lost the 2020 election to President-elect Biden.

Here’s some good news, folks: It’s going to end Jan. 20, when Biden takes the oath of office. Here’s some better news: The 20th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, enacted after the President Franklin Roosevelt’s election to his first term, moved the inaugural up from March 4.

Imagine this posturing dragging on for another several weeks, which could be the case were it not for the 20th Amendment being ratified in 1933.

President Herbert Hoover and FDR had such a poisonous relationship after the 1932 election that it illustrated the need to move the inaugural from March 4 to Jan. 20. The amendment was ratified on Jan. 23, 1933, which suggests that the momentum was building long before the Hoover-Roosevelt election.

I cannot imagine that hatred being any more toxic than what we’re witnessing these days. It was, I suppose.

I am just waiting now for Jan. 20 to come and go. We’ll get past this hideous display of presidential petulance.

medical news

Vaccine on the way … will it spell end to pandemic?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

It’s difficult for me to avoid getting too ramped up over news that a vaccine that could eradicate the COVID-19 virus is on its way to a pharmacy near me.

Pfizer has announced a potential vaccine with a 95 percent cure rate; Moderna has a similar vaccine in the works; Astrazenica does, too. Big pharma, which gets whipped and flogged all the time, is answering the call.

It’s all part of the Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed. It’s fashionable these days to bash the daylights out of Donald Trump … who deserves every bit of the thrashing he is getting for a whole host of reasons.

Operation Warp Speed, the code name for the administration’s effort to find a cure for the disease, has been a mixed bag to be sure. The pharmaceutical companies haven’t gotten the federal help that was promised, but they appear to be delivering trial versions of vaccines that well could be the proverbial “light at the end of the tunnel.”

I am not yet ready to whoop and holler, proclaiming it to be the news for which an entire nation has waited, but it does look promising.

Given all the bad news we’re getting — Trump’s refusal to concede his loss to President-elect Biden and the undermining of our democratic process, not to mention the death and misery caused by the pandemic — I will cling to the hope that we might awaken soon from this national nightmare.

national news

What happened to Rudy?

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I have been thinking of the tragedies that have emerged from Donald Trump’s term as president and I come up — so far — with just one tragic story.

It involves Rudy Giuliani, who’s now serving as Trump’s lead lawyer in the futile and feckless fight to overturn the results of the election Trump lost this month to President-elect Biden.

I mean, I have to collect myself a bit just to comprehend what has happened to the man who’s gone from hero to zero in the span of roughly two decades.

There he was, standing with President Bush after the 9/11 attacks on his city and the Pentagon. Giuliani served as NYC mayor. He became “America’s mayor.” Time magazine named him its person of the year in 2001 for the courage he demonstrated in helping his city  clean itself up after the wreckage that the terrorists delivered on that terrible day.

Before that the mayor served as a crime-fighting, mob-busting federal prosecutor.

I watch the videos of him from back in the post-9/11 era and wonder: What in the name of God in heaven happened to this guy?

He has devolved into a shill for Donald Trump. These days he is fomenting crazy and utterly stupid conspiracy theories about phony election fraud allegations. Did you saw him sweating during that presser this week, with hair dye dripping down both sides of his face? My goodness!

Rudy was ridiculous, citing a scene from “My Cousin Vinny” as evidence in a wacky conspiracy theory.

Well, you know all that. You know that America’s mayor has become America’s fool. I don’t know how you might feel about the deterioration of this once-stellar public servant. I will stand by my view that we are witnessing a tragedy in the making.

It saddens me beyond measure.

national news

Trump legacy? Shattered!

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(Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

This will come as no big surprise, but I have to get this off my chest.

Donald Trump’s legacy as president of the United States was — at best — destined to be a mixed, but mostly negative, compilation of historical fact.

Then came his losing bid for re-election. President-elect Biden is trying to form a government. He is being stymied and blocked at every level by Donald Trump.

The lame-duck president essentially had two courses he could have taken after losing the election.

He could have accepted the election result, offered a tepid “concession” and then released his team to assist in the transition. He could have kept his trap shut and gone out quietly.

He chose another course. He has alleged voter fraud where none exists. He has withheld presidential briefings from the new president and his national security team. Trump has withheld cooperation on the pandemic response, while hundreds of Americans continue to die each day. POTUS is meddling in states’ efforts to certify their election results, which already have told us that Biden won and Trump lost.

What is all this going to do to whatever legacy Donald Trump sought to leave behind? It will shatter it into a zillion pieces.

Trump is now going to be remembered as a joke, a fraud, a laughingstock, a hideous political aberration, a dangerous wannabe despot.

Nice going, Donald.

national news

Hoping to avoid head explosion

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

My head may be about to explode.

I am trying to wrap my noggin around what is continuing to unfold after President-elect Biden defeated Donald Trump in the 2020 election.

Trump is refusing to concede to Biden. He is withholding national security briefing material from the new team. Trump’s foot-dragging is stymying the president-elect’s transition team.

Worst of all, he is blocking efforts to enable the new team to prepare for how it plans to deal with the COVID pandemic that continues to kill hundreds of American every day.

I am at a loss as to how I am supposed to react to this. It is outrageous that Trump is doing this. It also outrageous that he seems to care not a damn bit that lives are going to be lost because of this astonishing, astounding, shameful refusal to accept the plain fact that Trump lost to Biden in a transparent, free and fair election. There was no “widespread voter fraud.”

Trump is preaching the Big Lie … delivering fake news!

He is committing arguably the most un-American act many of us have ever witnessed.

What’s more, we have plenty of shame to pass around.

Let’s start with congressional Republicans who continue to resist acknowledging President-elect Biden’s victory. Good God in heaven! they are even refusing to refer to him as “president-elect,” choosing instead to engage in some sort of verbal gymnastics. They have become cowed by a lame-duck president who is continuing to play to his cult of personality.

They, too, are engaging in a shameful display of cowardice the likes of which is utterly beyond my ability to comprehend.

I am struggling to hold onto my hope that Trump eventually will do what he must do, which is accept President-elect Biden’s victory and allow the transition to the new team to commence … at all levels!

It is getting more difficult with each passing day and each outrageous act by the Sore Loser in Chief.

I don’t want my head to explode.