Tag Archives: Joe Biden

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Trump: No. 1 threat

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Donald Trump simply couldn’t settle for just being a national security threat by virtue of his behavior regarding the Russians and North Koreans.

Oh, no. He had to become infected with a potentially fatal virus and then flout medical experts’ guidelines and rules about how to conduct himself. He has become a one-man “super spreader” of the disease that is afflicting more than a dozen of his key White House advisers, members of the U.S. Senate, top officers among his military command staff.

Trump returned to the White House on Monday, shucked the mask he was told to wear, stood and offered a stiff salute while gasping for breath, then went into the White House to mingle with staffers and employees. Did he observe “social distancing”? Hah! Not even …

Now he wants to take part in a presidential encounter with the man who appears poised to defeat him Nov. 3, Joe Biden. That will occur on Oct. 15. Maybe!

I am not at all sure it ought to happen, with Biden and Trump standing/sitting on the same stage. Perhaps they could do a “virtual” confrontation, with the adversaries sitting in their own environments. Whatever.

I am simply flabbergasted that Trump continues to offer the happy talk that he “we have done a tremendous job,” that the virus is “under control,” that it will “disappear like a miracle.”

Let me be crystal clear. Donald Trump is not cured of anything. He continues to expose those around him to a potentially fatal disease. He came out of Walter Reed Medical Center prematurely. I do not believe the White House medical staff that expressed “support” for Trump’s decision to leave the hospital; I was struck by the absence of the word “approve” when discussing the decision to exit the medical center.

Trump is a menace. He said he would listen to the medical experts, but hasn’t exhibited any sort of wisdom in heeding his own advice. He is threatening our national security by ignoring the recommendations provided by the medical experts all around him.

He isn’t making America great with his reckless, feckless behavior.

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Who’s winning? Who’s losing?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

On a day when Donald Trump decided to quit working with Democrats in Congress over a coronavirus relief package — sending the stock market straight into the dumper — Joe Biden delivered a high-minded speech about unity and our national soul on the site of a revered Civil War battlefield.

One of these fellows is campaigning like a winner; the other is acting like an expected loser.

Hmmm. Who is whom?

It looks to me as though Joe Biden’s decision today to speak to our nation’s better angels without once mentioning Donald Trump’s name is the winner here. Trump? Well, he’s looking more desperate with each passing day.

Does this mean Biden should coast during the campaign’s final 28 days? Hardly. It means only that he took time today to forgo a partisan attack and sought instead to speak to our higher ideals.

As for Trump, he wouldn’t know a higher ideal if it bit him on his ample backside. He has no view of what’s noble or good. He deals in invective and innuendo. He campaigned that way en route to victory in 2016 and has governed that way as president.

Trump decided today that he wouldn’t negotiate with congressional Democrats to find a solution to a coronavirus relief bill; he will talk after the election, he said. To what end is this man refusing to talk to the “other party”?

I cannot or will not predict this presages a Biden victory. Trump, after all, faced grim odds before heading down the stretch four years ago against Hillary Clinton … and then he won!

Oh, but I do hope we are thrashing our way out of the darkness.

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Don’t sweat the COVID virus? Huh?

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Donald J. Trump is back in the White House after spending about 70 hours at Walter Reed Medical Center.

He is infected with the coronavirus, the one that’s killing Americans every single day.

His response to the virus? Don’t worry about it, he said upon departing the hospital for the residence at the White House. Don’t worry? Is this man nuts? Don’t answer that. I know what you would say … and I would agree.

Donald Trump will never get it. That much is now as clear as it gets.

He doesn’t harbor an ounce of empathy for those who have lost loved ones to the dreaded virus. Trump doesn’t understand what it means to suffer such grievous loss, which is a tough thing to say about a man whose brother died of alcohol abuse. Still, he says things about not worrying about the coronavirus without grasping how those words fall on the ears of those who are mourning the loss of a loved one who has died from it.

I have said before and I’ll say it again that I am hoping that Trump recovers fully from the disease. I want him to stand for re-election on Nov. 3. I also want him to lose bigly. I want Joe Biden to be elected president.

Why? Donald Trump’s behavior while being holed up at Walter Reed and his comments upon leaving it tell me he cannot lead the nation in this dark pandemic era.

What’s more, I haven’t even mentioned until right now how he shucked the mask upon entering the White House.

Donald Trump needs to go.

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Pretend you are losing

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

If anyone were to ask for my opinion, I would tell Joe Biden’s team to presume he is losing the contest against Donald Trump.

That means he should campaign full out, full throttle as he heads down the home stretch of the 2020 campaign for president.

The Donald keeps making mistakes that send polling numbers in Biden’s direction. That shouldn’t count.

I want Biden to win. I do not want another home stretch surprise such as what happened when Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in 2016.

So, to avoid such a reprise, Biden needs to act as if he is behind.

Is anyone listening to me?

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Hoping for return to civility

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

What do I wish at the end of this bizarre presidential campaign season?

A lot of things, to be candid. One of them happens to be a standard by which we don’t call attention to simple gestures that we used to take for granted.

Former President Obama wrote this on Twitter:

Michelle and I hope that the President, First Lady, and all those affected by the coronavirus around the country are getting the care they need and are on the path to a speedy recovery. Obviously, we’re in the midst of a big political battle right now, and while there’s a lot at stake, let’s remember that we’re all Americans. We’re all human beings. And we want everyone to be healthy, no matter our party.

Donald Trump’s hospitalization, along with first lady Melania Trump’s affliction with the COVID-19 virus, brings to mind the expressions of concern that have come from Joe Biden, among others. Then we have President Obama offering his own good wishes to the man who despises him.

This kind of once-common outreach has been plowed asunder by the venom, vitriol and venality of the past four years. It has sickened me beyond belief. Yes, I have been sucked into it at times and I do regret some of the hyper-angry rhetoric that has poured forth on this blog.

I want a return to civility. They call it “comity” in the halls of power. It’s just another word for civility and courtesy. There has been so little of it coming from the White House and, yes, from Capitol Hill.

Joe Biden spent 36 years in the Senate before becoming vice president during the Obama years. He says he wants to restore our national “soul.” Part of what has been missing from our political discourse has been the common touch of decency that used to be commonplace.

You’ll recall when the gunman opened fire in 2017 on Republican members of Congress practicing for the bipartisan baseball game. House GOP Whip Steve Scalise was nearly killed by the lunatic. When he returned to the House floor, all the members stood and applauded. Leading the applause was House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, who said in that moment “we were all Italian.”

One of many fond hopes I have for a Biden presidency if it comes to that after the election is that we can set aside the hatred and the view that our foes are our “enemies.”

national news

POTUS becomes Exhibit A

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

It is utterly impossible to avoid putting a political spin on news that Donald and Melania Trump have contracted the coronavirus that has killed more than 200,000 Americans.

I wish a complete recovery for the first couple.

I also believe that Trump should pay the ultimate political price because of what has transpired. He has tested positive for a virus he once called a “Democrat hoax,” which he has sought to play down because he didn’t want to “panic” Americans, which he keeps telling us is “under control” and which he has said will be disappear miraculously.

Donald Trump now becomes the leading exhibit for discussion about the falsehoods he has been telling for most of this year.

The pandemic is not getting any better. We’re in the middle apparently of yet another surge in illness and death.

Donald Trump is running for re-election partly by touting the “fantastic job” he says his administration has done. He has ignored medical experts’ advice about wearing a mask or keeping a social distance from others.

He is now paying a price. Trump is likely to pay a steep political price as well … as he should.

Trump mocked Joe Biden earlier this week because the Democratic Party presidential nominee wears a mask. Unbelievable! Biden shrugged it off with a chuckle.

We are heading now into the final month of the most unusual election season in anyone’s memory. Yes, the election will be a referendum on Donald Trump’s mishandling of the initial response to the pandemic. Indeed, his continued response has been an exercise in fecklessness, too.

There will be no more claims of “Democrat hoax.” Nor will there be any more mocking of those who wear masks or keep their distance from others. That’s all fine. The damage politically has been done to Trump, in my view.

That, too, is fine with me.

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Are you surprised to hear this news?

NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/Getty Images

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I just have to ask: How many of us were really surprised to awaken today to the news that Donald and Melania Trump had tested positive for the coronavirus?

Not me. I mean, c’mon! The president speaks of the pandemic as if it’s “under control,” he dismisses the wearing of masks, he hold rallies with crowds of adoring fans packed shoulder to shoulder in front of him and one of his closest aides, Hope Hicks, tests positive for the virus.

Now, having said that, I do not want the first couple to suffer grievously from the disease. Accordingly, I was pleased to learn this morning that their young son, Barron, tested negative; so let’s hope the youngster keeps his good health.

However, the very notion that Donald Trump would be so terribly dismissive of the pandemic and would mock Joe Biden — the Democratic nominee who is running against him — for wearing a mask only tempts me to say, “I told you so.”

I won’t speak specifically to what this bombshell news will do to the presidential campaign. It’s too early to tell whether it will sound the death knell for Trump’s effort to get re-elected.

The news, though, should bring the administration’s non-response to the pandemic back to the top of voters’ awareness. Trump’s mishandling of the initial response now has been essentially validated by Trump’s own words, as he spoke them to Washington Post reporter/editor Bob Woodward. He knew initially that the pandemic would kill many Americans, but lied to the public about the looming threat.

Trump has sought to change the subject. He cannot possibly change it now.

My wish is for Trump and the first lady to get well … and then for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to defeat him handily on Election Day.

The time has come for some truth-telling at the White House.

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Anger is palpable

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Has there ever been a presidential campaign — in the past century — that has evoked the kind of visceral anger between devotees of both major-party presidential candidates than this one?

Donald Trump’s minions are accusing Joe Biden’s fans of fomenting socialism. Biden’s side argues that Trump is unfit to serve as president. Trump’s team is suggesting that Biden’s mental acuity is slipping. Biden’s team says Trump has become unhinged.

They sides now are talking to each other. Trumpkins accuse Bidenistas of hating America. Reverse those accusations and we hear the Biden team suggesting that Trump’s side favors Russian interests over American interests.

Who is to blame for this?

Here it comes. I blame Donald John Trump fully, completely and without equivocation.

Trump has fomented this kind of anger with his own fiery rhetoric. His campaign launch in 2015 with a blistering attack on Latin American immigrants and continued with a call to ban all travel into the country from those who live in mostly Muslim countries.

It has hurtled downhill from there.

The nadir of Trump’s presidency might have been when he called Ku Klux Klansmen and Nazis “good people.” Hmm. My dear old Dad would have come totally unglued were he around to hear that one, given that he went to war in 1942 to fight those very Nazis.

The litany of divisive rhetoric is too lengthy to recount here. You know what I’m talking about. The consequence has been anger that has filtered into the ranks of those who adore Donald Trump and those who loathe him.

Joe Biden Jr. promises to heal the nation. He wants to restore our national “soul.” I pray that the American soul isn’t permanently damaged by the battering it has received during the tenure of the Donald Trump’s time as president.

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2020 slogan emerges

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

President Ronald Reagan ran for re-election in 1984 under the slogan that it was “Morning in America.”

Eight years later, Bill Clinton ran for president with a phrase coined in the 1992 campaign war room: “It’s the economy,  stupid.”

Here we are in 2020. Joe Biden is running for president and I believe I have discerned what might be the slogan of this campaign.

“Will you shut up, man?”

Biden blurted that tidbit out Tuesday night while Donald J. Trump was interrupting him for the umpteenth time.

There you have it. Look for t-shirts, ballcaps and perhaps even face masks with “Shut up man!” plastered on the garments.

It works for me.

Well said, Mr. Vice President.

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Trump cannot recover

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

First-debate performances have been a curse occasionally for presidents seeking re-election.

Donald Trump’s astonishing display of boorishness Tuesday night, though, might produce an insurmountable obstacle for this president. I want to revisit two recent examples of first-debate stumbles.

  • In 1984, President Reagan stumbled, bumbled and mumbled his way through a joint appearance with Democratic challenger Walter Mondale; many observers wondered whether Reagan had “lost it.” The two men came back at the next debate and the president was asked whether he was up to the job of president. He responded that “I will not exploit for political purposes my opponent’s youth and inexperience.” He brought the house down … and then won re-election in a 49-state landslide.
  • In 2012, President Obama was facing a tough fight against Republican nominee Mitt Romney. The candidates faced off in a debate. Obama was clumsy, off his game, offering muted responses to questions. Romney essentially wiped the floor with Obama. They returned a few days later and Obama recovered his voice and thumped Romney. Obama then was re-elected with a handsome majority.

So now I ask: Is there any way that Donald Trump can recover from what’s been called a “sh** show” this week? I do not know how he does.

Trump won’t listen to advice. He doesn’t accept the wisdom of others with actual knowledge of pertinent matters.

Indeed, given the astonishingly graphic nature of his behavior Tuesday night, it boggles my mind to understand how he steps across that behavior to make Americans forget about what they witnessed in real time.

We all saw what I consider to be the most shameful incident ever put on by a president of the United States. He has demonstrated once and for all that he is an embarrassment to the country he was elected to govern.

He told white supremacists to “stand by” while we count the ballots; he mocked his opponent for wearing a mask in the middle of a killer pandemic; Trump told lie after freaking lie on live TV.

How does he recover from that? In my humble view, he doesn’t … and that’s a good thing for the United States of America.