Monthly Archives: December 2020

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.

national news

Waiting for a POTUS to do his job

(Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

While we watch Donald Trump remained fixated on an issue he cannot change, it is good to look ahead toward an era when we get a president who is committed to doing his job.

Joe Biden will take an oath on Jan. 20 to defend and protect the Constitution and to defend Americans against our enemies.

Our enemies must include a pandemic that continues to kill Americans every hour of the day. The total has zoomed past 300,000 and will only grow for the foreseeable future. Yes, we have good news on the way in the form of vaccines developed by two major pharmaceutical firms; medicine is being injected right now into the arms of first responders.

The current president, though, is quiet about all the misery we’re still experiencing. He instead is focusing on court challenges to an election he lost bigly. He has lost more than 60 court battles, including at least two of them before the U.S. Supreme Court; indeed, he has been rebuffed by the three justices he nominated to the nation’s highest court, proving once again the value of an independent federal judiciary.

Joe Biden will bring an entirely different approach to governing. Of that I am absolutely, utterly and completely certain. The president-elect has spent his entire professional life in public service. He is wired for the job he is about to inherit, unlike Trump, who is wired only for self-enrichment.

Trump never acquired the knowledge of running a massive government enterprise. It’s now an open question whether he even knew how to run a business empire he acquired with substantial financial help from his father.

Donald Trump has been AWOL since losing his re-election bid. The new man, Joe Biden, is hard at work crafting an executive branch of government worthy of the effort that awaits it.

I am one American who looks forward to the new guy taking charge.

environmental news, national news

Push toward energy alternatives? Yes

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

A nation is watching a government take shape.

President-elect Joe Biden is systematically appointing Cabinet and high-level advisors at a brisk clip. They are by and large competent, knowledgeable and forward-thinking. I don’t see any real clunkers in the group.

We’re going to get an energy secretary who once served as governor of Michigan. Jennifer Granholm is expected to take over from Dan Brouilette as soon as the Senate confirms her. What do I want from the new energy boss? Well, I want something that’s been missing for the past four years under Brouilette and from former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who preceded him as energy boss. I want an emphasis on renewable energy.

Will this be part of the Granholm agenda when she takes over as head of the Department of Energy? It damn sure better be.

What was most troubling to me about Rick Perry’s tenure at Energy was his silence on the issue of renewable energy … the clean energy that could replace fossil fuel-driven energy. What disappointed me was that while he was governor of Texas, we saw wind energy farms sprouting like wildflowers all over West Texas. Perry’s tenure as governor saw a huge investment in the kind of energy that promotes environmental protection while heating and cooling our homes and delivering electricity to business and industry throughout the state.

Indeed, Texas became the nation’s leading producer of wind-generated electricity during Perry’s time as governor. Then he ran for president twice; he called Donald Trump a “cancer on conservatism,” pulled out of the 2016 contest and then got selected to serve as energy secretary during the first part of the Trump administration. He must have made a pledge to keep quiet about his record in Texas, because we didn’t hear much from him about alternative energy sources.

President-elect Biden is expected to select Gov. Granholm as the nation’s next energy secretary. He also is committing considerable interest and resources to battling climate change. He has named former Secretary of State John Kerry as his international climate envoy and former Environmental Protection Agency head Gina McCarthy as the nation’s domestic climate change guru.

Fossil fuel production and the carbon emissions that choke our air have caused a worldwide crisis with its impact on our planet’s climate. The nation’s energy secretary can play a key role in stemming that trend and perhaps guide us toward a reversal of fortune.

Jennifer Granholm must be able and willing to take that lead. So must the man who will nominate her to the key job. President Biden has stated clearly and without equivocation that climate change presents a dire threat to our national security. He needs to give the next energy secretary the go-ahead to attack that problem head-on.

local news

There you go, Rep. Taylor; that wasn’t so hard … was it?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

“Our Constitution defines the process for electing the president. Today, the Electoral College voted and on January 20th, President-elect Joe Biden will be sworn in as the 46th President of the United States. Anne and I extend our prayers and well wishes to the Biden and Harris families as they prepare for this momentous undertaking.”

— U.S. Rep. Van Taylor of Plano

There you have it. A freshman Republican congressman from the Metroplex has signed on to the notion that, by golly, Joseph R. Biden is going to take office as the next president of the United States.

Van Taylor happens to represent me in the U.S. House of Representatives. What astounds me at this moment in our nation’s history is that the media and other observers even have to ask members of Congress such an elementary question.

Taylor responded to a question from the Texas Tribune to our state’s entire congressional delegation: Do you accept Joe Biden as the president-elect?

Not all of the GOP-dominated delegation answered the question, which is their way of saying “no.” Taylor said “yes.” For that I am grateful and pleased.

As for the non-responders, which include Sen. Ted Cruz and the loony bin rep from East Texas, Louie Gohmert, I have nothing more to say other than this: Shame on you and shame on those who believe the bullsh** being fomented by Donald J. Trump about the legitimacy of Joe Biden’s election as president!

They have disgraced the beloved state and the nation they took an oath to serve.

national news

Trump is shrinking before our eyes

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

The more complaints that Donald Trump throws out there regarding the presidential election, the smaller, more venal, more petty and less presidential, undemocratic and unpatriotic he sounds.

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell publicly — finally! — accepted President-elect Biden’s election on Nov. 3. It’s not that McConnell deserves high praise for doing what he should have done long ago.

It is that Trump now has blasted McConnell — one of his staunchest allies in the Senate — for, um, speaking the truth! It is that the Electoral College has certified Biden’s victory and that McConnell now is ready to say aloud what he likely knew all along in private … which is that Joe Biden is going to move into the White House on Jan. 20 and that Donald Trump will become a private citizen.

What shouldn’t be a surprise is that Trump fears the truth. Which might explain why he cannot tell us the truth. Not ever!

I am just puzzled at how Trump continues to look at himself in the mirror and ignore what many millions of Americans know already: that Trump is a petty, petulant narcissist who is inflicting real damage on the institutions of government he took an oath to defend and protect.

national news

Turning the page already

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Just as President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. urged us earlier this week to “turn the page,” I am happy to report that I am beginning that process already in my own head and heart.

Biden’s comment came after the Electoral College certified his victory on Nov. 3 over Donald J. Trump. The states’ electors gathered in their respective capitals and cast their votes. Biden got 306 electoral votes; Trump earned 232 of them.

Game over. No more challenges to file. No more court battles to wage. No more insistence that the election was “rigged.”

It’s time to turn the page, as the next president urged us.

I have said already that I intend to look more toward the future than to the past. That doesn’t mean I will ignore the rants coming from Donald Trump. It means only that my focus will be more toward what I hope will be a fresh start with the incoming presidential administration.

I am turning the page. Perhaps it’s a bit slow to turn, but it’s turning. Time to move on and for the new president to get to work. Joe Biden has quite a bit of damage to repair.

International news

Where is POTUS’s outrage now?

(Photo by Chris McGrath/Getty Images)

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

As the president of the United States continues to rant and rail against the democratic process in this country, an avowed foe of the country he was elected to govern has been revealed to have hacked into several federal government agencies.

Have we heard a peep from Donald J. Trump? Has the president signaled any sort of public anger at what the Russians have done — again! — in their ongoing assault on our governmental infrastructure?

The answer is as obvious as it gets. No. He hasn’t said a word publicly about it. Donald Trump has expressed zero outrage. He has remained silent, just as he did when it was reported that Russian goons were paying Taliban terrorists bounties for Americans killed on the battlefield in Afghanistan.

It has been abundantly clear to me and others that Trump might pretend that he won the 2020 presidential election, but his lack of action on any manner of important matters suggests he has taken leave of his duties … not that he ever paid much attention to the myriad details of his job.

Donald Trump will disgrace Americans for as long as he occupies the presidency. The clock is ticking on his exit.

national news

No ‘war’ on Christmas

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Of all the phony, ridiculous and bogus campaign pledges that Donald J. Trump made on  his way to the White House, the one that sticks in my craw is his promise to restore the greeting “Merry Christmas” to our vernacular.

You recall that, right? Donald Trump fomented the phony conservative mantra that liberals/progressives were in cahoots with non-Christians to declare war on Christmas. He castigated business owners for requiring their employees to wish their customers a “happy holiday” after taking their money. I believe he actually promised to “make them” order their employees to offer Christmas greetings.

Stupid, yes? Yes! It is!

OK, so now Trump is about to leave office. We have to endure one more Christmas season with The Donald in the White House. Then it will be Joe and Jill Biden taking up residence in our house. They will populate the place with their children and grandchildren, along with a couple of rescue pooches and a cat.

And they will bring plenty of Christmas cheer with them.

What I do not expect President Biden to do will be to make a phony declaration of war against those who have sought a more expansive view of the holiday season than just what Christians around the world celebrate.

I want to make a quick point of personal privilege.

I celebrate Christmas with all its trappings. I celebrate its secular meaning as well as its spiritual significance. I grew up in the Orthodox Church and became a Presbyterian when I got married nearly 50 years ago. However, all that said, I never, ever have taken offense to someone wishing me a “happy holiday.” Indeed, I long have understood that the individual extending that greeting likely doesn’t know a thing about me or my background; he or she doesn’t know if I am a Christian, a Jew, a Muslim, a Buddhist or a Wiccan.

So, when I hear politicians throw out the kind of political bull crap that Donald Trump did four years ago while he campaigned for president, I take it all for what it’s worth.

Which is … not a damn thing!