Tag Archives: Joe Biden

national news

Will we know who won on Election Night?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I have been rubbing balm on my trick knee to keep it from throbbing during this election season.

Now, though, I think it might be time to let my joints “talk” to me about what might happen when they count the ballots for president of the United States.

Here is what they’re saying:

They are telling me that we are going to have a winner declared sometime during the night. It could be in the wee hours. Or it might come much earlier than any of us expects.

How might we learn early? Joe Biden could pick off a few key swing states early — such as, oh, Florida, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and perhaps Georgia. Without Florida in the bank, Donald Trump has virtually no path to re-election.

Then there could be the shocker of all: Biden squeaking out a win in, gulp, Texas. The early vote here has been stupendous, with Democrats in Harris, Dallas and Travis counties rushing to vote early.

I say all this while resisting the urge to predict it will happen. The West Coast states of Oregon, Washington and California are in the bag for Joe. There’s also Nevada, New Mexico and Hawaii. Toss in Arizona and you’re looking at a possible Biden landslide.

Trump is talking up a big Election Day surge among Republicans. They might turn out en masse as well. Will it be enough to overcome the potential early vote surge we’ve seen in Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa where the COVID crisis also is surging? Time will offer an explainer.

My trick knee also could be sending me another sort of message, which is that Trump will enjoy enough of a surge at the end to squeak out an electoral college fluke that mirrors what transpired in 2016. That is the scenario that could keep the result in limbo for several days past Election Night.

OK, one more thought: If we know the evening of Nov. 3 or the early morning of Nov. 4, I believe Donald Trump will concede. He won’t do it in the normal way, offering his congratulations to the winner and promising his full support. He will surrender the White House with gritted teeth.

That’s my call and I’m sticking with it. Such as it is.

political news, State news

Yell it out: We’re No. 1

1 Comment

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Early voting in Texas has shut down and here’s the good news: Texans responded like champs to Democrats’ call for early voting.

We responded so well that the early vote totals have surpassed the entire number of ballots we cast in the 2016 election; and that includes Election Day voting four years ago.

So, what does that mean? On the surface it could mean that more voters who lean in Joe Biden’s favor have turned out to cast their ballots early. My ballot is among the more than 9 million already cast. Does the former VP have a majority of those ballots in his column? Beats me. We’ll find out in, what, four days.

Still, it warms my soft spot to know that Texas has set the pace nationally in responding to this early-vote call. It was done out of concern that Donald Trump’s re-election machine is going to muck up the ballot-counting of mail-in votes.

Democrats responded by imploring us to vote early. My wife and I did, even though we would have preferred to wait to vote in-person on Election Day. The COVID crisis, though, persuaded us to vote early and not risk getting a mail-in ballot caught up in the snail-mail delivery system.

Now comes the mad rush by the candidates — Biden and Kamala Harris on one side, and Trump and Mike Pence on the other — as they criss-cross the country in search of votes.

I am now going to relax just a bit over the next couple of days. Then I will await the returns to start pouring in on Election Night. Oh, how I want this election to turn out the correct way.

national news

Trump looks like a loser

1 Comment

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Donald Trump looks, sounds and is acting like a loser.

I know he hates the word applied to himself, given that he tosses it at others with sickening regularity.

I spend a big chunk of my day listening to political analysts who contend that Trump is on the brink of losing the presidential campaign. It might be a landslide, some of them say. Others contend we’re in for a nail-biter Tuesday night.

To be honest, I don’t know what to think, who to believe, what to expect. Why the uncertainty? It has everything to do with Donald Trump. He makes me queasy. He gives me the heebie-jeebies. I am frightened — yes, actually frightened — by the prospect of a second Trump term as president.

This individual is capable of doing anything to win. By anything, I mean … anything. He doesn’t like governing. Trump doesn’t bother to study the issues he should confront. He savors the limelight that the presidency casts on him. Accordingly, he wants to stand on center stage and in my view will do whatever it takes to remain there.

But, damn! He looks like such a loser as this campaign heads down the stretch. Trump is not seeking to expand his voter base. Joe Biden, the challenger, is taking his mostly positive message of unity, healing and hope to places such as Georgia.

Get this: Biden’s VP running mate, Kamala Harris, is coming Friday to Texas; she’ll campaign in McAllen, Houston and Fort Worth. The Texas swing is big, folks. Texas most recently voted for a Democratic presidential ticket in, um, 1976!

I wish I could take the loser look and sound of Trump to the bank. I just cannot. Not yet.

Donald Trump yanked victory from defeat’s jaws four years ago. I am not suggesting he can do it again this time. I merely am practicing an abundance of caution while watching this campaign head for the finish line.

national news

Awaiting a new era

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Critics of this blog will have to bear with me for just a few more days.

I truly am looking forward to the day when I won’t have to devote so much of my emotional capital criticizing the actions, the rhetoric and the record of the current president of the United States, Donald J. Trump.

Moreover, my fondest hope is that the day will arrive sometime on Election Night early next week, or maybe in the next day or two afterward. That would be when we can declare Joe Biden to be the next president and the current one can start his transition back to private life.

Until then I will keep up a steady stream of rhetorical fire aimed at Trump.

He is unfit for for the office he occupies. Trump won the 2016 election by portraying himself as a “populist” who allegedly cares about the little guy. We have learned from the get-go that he is nothing of the sort.

The litany of strikes against Trump are virtually endless, so it is daunting in the extreme to list them here. I trust those of you who have read this blog over the years understand where I come from.

I do hope the day of calling Trump to task for all that he has done to this country is coming to an end. He will be rendered irrelevant eventually. I hope that moment arrives next week and not four years from now.

My final concern about a potential Trump defeat at the polls will be that he won’t go quietly. That he won’t accept the results as legit. That he’ll mount that challenge that could end up in front of the Supreme Court’s justices. Then, of course, he remains a target of this blog. If he decides against all of that and surrenders to reality, well, then we can move on to the next era.

I hope the day after the election dawns brightly.

national news

Most frightening creature …

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Earth’s most frightening creature doesn’t roam the African plains in search of wildebeest or zebra. It doesn’t prowl the jungles of India looking for sambar or wild boar. Nor does it roam the Rocky Mountains preying on elk, moose or migrating salmon, or swim under the ocean surface searching for unsuspecting surfers.

Oh, no. The planet’s most frightening being sits in living rooms all across the land, lying to public opinion pollsters about who will get his or her vote for president of the United States next week.

Yep. Those folks scare the crap out of me!

How many of them are out there? How many will surface on Election Day to cast their votes for Donald Trump after telling pollsters they either are undecided or will vote for Joe Biden?

As frightening as that prospect seems, I tend to think their numbers are a bit overstated. I mean, who would hide their voting preference to a stranger who doesn’t broadcast individuals’ names, or plaster them on campaign pamphlets?

We cast our votes in secret. No one is entitled to know how we vote. So to my way of thinking there’s a bit of a disconnect between how folks vote and whether they fib when asked by pollsters.

Still, the prospect of a potential hidden vote out there gives me the creeps. I get the nervous jerks when I think of the notion that they’ll rise up en masse and re-elect the most unqualified, unfit and undeserving man ever elected to the nation’s highest office.

With that I am going to remain cautiously optimistic — with the emphasis on cautiously — that we are going to see a major course correction occur on Election Day.

Thus, I intend to sleep well over the weekend. However, I cannot guarantee how I will sleep the night before we start counting all those ballots.

national news

No watch party this time, but interest remains keen

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

My wife and I got an invitation four years ago to attend a presidential Election Night watch party at our friends’ home in Amarillo.

We arrived full of optimism that we would witness history, with the election of the first woman ever as president of the United States.

What occurred, as you know, wiped the smiles off our faces.

We won’t attend any watch parties this year. The COVID crisis has taken care of that bit of Election Night activity. We’ll stay home in Princeton and watch the returns as they unfold during the night.

Our interest in this election, though, far exceeds what we thought we felt in 2016. Why? Because the individual who won last time — and who had no business occupying the most exalted public office on Earth — has been a disaster … to borrow a term that Donald Trump likes using.

I remain baffled in the extreme at how Trump has managed to hang onto that base of voters who continue to cheer his lies, his feints, his bob-and-weave answers. They either are too ignorant to think for themselves or they know he’s lying but give him a pass because he, um, “is telling it like it is.”

I need to restate what I have said already throughout this election season: Joe Biden is not the guy I wanted initially to win the Democratic Party nomination for president of the United States. I had hoped for someone new, someone fresh and someone with an entirely different approach to governance.

Biden survived the sausage grinder of the Democratic primary. He withstood a grilling from his fellow Democrats. He survived the crucible and now is challenging the individual who I have deemed the most unfit, unqualified, undeserving individual ever elected to the nation’s highest office. Donald Trump fooled just enough of ’em to win the Electoral College vote in 2016.

We won’t gather with friends this year. We will be watching with even more intensity this year than we did the previous time.

Oh, how I yearn for a different outcome.

national news

A cure for Trump fatigue?

3 Comments

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I am suffering from a potentially terminal illness.

It’s called Donald Trump fatigue. I am tired, weary and downright exhausted by Donald Trump’s presence on the national political stage. The only sure-fire cure for the ailment is for Joseph Biden to whip his a** on Nov. 3, to send him to Mar-a-Lago, Fla.

Now, when I say “sure-fire cure for the ailment,” I don’t mean to suggest that a Trump defeat on Election Day will rid the country of his presence. I do mean to say, though, that I intend fully to devote the teeny-tiniest fraction of my time and attention to whatever he has to say. He will be irrelevant.

I understand fully that the stars have to align properly for Biden to defeat Trump. I hope they are lining up as we sit here. Biden’s poll numbers look positive … at this moment. I am still stinging from the stunning upset Trump pulled off in 2016 when he defeated another frontrunning Democrat to be elected president.

So, with that I am hoping for all I am worth to be cured of the fatigue that has worn me out. Rest assured, however, that this blog will keep up the barrage for as long as Donald Trump is in office and for as long as he continues to embarrass and shame the country he was elected to lead.

national news

Here’s the paper’s ‘asterisk’

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

The Manchester (N.H.) Union-Leader used to feature one of the country’s premier conservative editorial pages.

Its editorial voice was important, given New Hampshire’s role as an early presidential primary state. This weekend, though, the Union-Leader threw its editorial support behind Democratic nominee Joe Biden … but with what the paper called “an asterisk.”

Here is what the paper noted at the end of its editorial:

While Joe Biden is the clear choice for president, it would be a disservice to the country to send him to the White House without a backstop. We suggest splitting the ballot and electing a healthy dose of GOP senators and representatives. The best governance often comes through compromise. The civility of the Biden administration will help foster such compromise, but a blue wave would be nearly as disastrous for this country as four more years of Trump. It would result in a quagmire of big government programs that will take decades to overcome.

I would agree with what the paper stated, were it not for the obstructionism that has dominated the legislative branch of government under GOP rule.

My hope for the election of a “healthy dose of GOP senators and representatives” would be that they would turn away from the idiocy and anger promoted by Donald Trump and actually agree to govern as partners with Democrats, notably with a Democrat who could be elected president of the United States.

Check out the Union-Leader’s full endorsement here.

I should point out that as a U.S. senator and as vice president, Biden was able all by himself to forge relationships with Republicans. The man knows how to govern.

As for the notion of ticket-splitting, that’s fine if Republicans adopt a formula for governance. Anything else is a non-starter.

medical news, national news

Pandemic surrender?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Did I hear this correctly?

Did the White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, actually tell CNN’s Jake Tapper that the White House cannot “control” the pandemic that Donald Trump keeps saying is “under control”?

I’ll be dipped …

There can be zero doubt as to why Joe Biden is making the pandemic response — or non-response — from the White House his signature campaign topic as he seeks to defeat Donald Trump in eight days.

Biden is telling the nation that Trump has “quit” on Americans, that he is lying about having the pandemic under control. Trump keeps lying. Now we have the White House chief of staff, who should be Trump’s key adviser, essentially endorsing Biden’s allegation of Trump’s decision to quit, to surrender in the fight against the pandemic.

Simply astonishing.

Meanwhile, Americans continue to get sick, continue to die. Their families continue to worry about their loved ones’ fate and continue to mourn their deaths.

We hear now that the White House is saying it cannot do what Donald Trump has said it has done already.

Mixed message? Yeah! Do you think?

national news

Down the stretch they go!

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

As long as the media keep reporting on the “horse race” aspect of the 2020 presidential campaign, I suppose it’s fitting now to note that Joe Biden and Donald Trump are heading down the stretch.

Did anything change substantively from their second and final joint appearance? It appears, um … no!

Biden’s lead remains steady if not overwhelming. Trump is trying to find a new path to the 270 electoral votes he needs to win re-election. Biden is taking his talking points this week — get this — to Georgia! Biden thinks he has a chance to capture that Deep South bastion of Republican politics. Who knew?

I remain hopeful — but I am leery — that Biden can pull this off, that he can banish Trump from the White House and that he can restore our national “soul,” which was his initial campaign message when he jumped into this contest.

My hope cannot wipe away the memory of what happened in 2016. Hillary Clinton led Trump down the stretch, too. Then she — and the rest of us — got the surprise of our political lives when Trump cobbled together an electoral majority to win!

He ran four years ago as an outsider vowing to shake things up. Well, he has shaken things up, all right. Now he is the ultimate insider.

Oh, and we have that pandemic that he ignored and the economic revival he inherited has collapsed as a result.

Stay busy, Joe Biden. Your work ain’t done yet.