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Trump: horse’s ass extraordinaire

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Donald J. Trump is demonstrating hourly it seems that he truly is the horse’s ass we’ve all come to know and loathe.

He won’t agree to the revised terms of a second presidential joint appearance with Joe Biden. So what did the bipartisan commission on these events do? It canceled it altogether. The event that was supposed to occur next week won’t happen.

Biden will conduct a town hall meeting with voters in Philadelphia. Trump is going to resume his rallies.

The debate commission had cited the continued risk of the COVID-19 virus that Trump had contracted as its reason for canceling the event. That’s just as well, given Trump’s refusal to abide by changes in the format designed to avoid a repeat of the sh** show that erupted at the first appearance with Biden.

But we also have a lot of back stories to ponder.

Trump wants Biden and former President Obama indicted and jailed for “treasonous” crimes he said they committed. He won’t specify the crimes. Oh, he’s also going after Hillary Clinton — his 2016 campaign foe — over those emails. How about that?

So help me, Hanna … Trump is sounding and acting like someone who knows he is going to lose the next election. He is behaving in a manner that suggests a surrender to a grim reality, which is that he is incapable of demonstrating real leadership in a national crisis.

Yes, we have that pandemic!

Trump will have an event this weekend at the White House, which health officials have identified as a “super spreader” location. The place is infested with individuals who have been exposed to the killer virus. Trump then is endangering every person who will attend his campaign rally simply refusing to demand they wear masks and that they maintain appropriate “social distance.”

Will there ever be a second joint appearance with Biden and Trump? For now the event scheduled for Oct. 22 is still on. The debate commission likely will seek to revise the rules per its attempt to improve from that clusterfu** that revealed Trump to be the Bully in Chief.

So, the campaign is starting to stagger toward the finish line. That’s a good thing. The sooner we can get this disaster behind the sooner we can begin to heal the wounds that Donald Trump has inflicted.

That, of course, presumes a Joe Biden victory. I am banking on it.

local news

Where’s outrage, Rep. Taylor?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Van Taylor is likely to be re-elected to a second term as congressman from North Texas. He is a Republican running in a solidly GOP congressional district, which includes my neighborhood in Princeton in eastern Collin County.

However, the young man has pi**ed me off royally.

Let me stipulate off the top that I honor his service as a combat Marine in Afghanistan. He parlayed that service into a winning campaign in 2018 to succeed the retiring GOP Rep. Sam Johnson, a former Vietnam War prisoner who served the district with honor for many years.

It’s Taylor’s military service that brings me to the point.

We have learned that Russian dictator Vladimir Putin offered bounties to Taliban terrorists if they killed U.S. servicemen and women on the battlefield in Afghanistan. Donald Trump has been silent about it. He has declined to confront Putin directly about the bounties; good grief, he actually admitted to glossing over the issue in conversations with his pal, Vlad.

What about Rep. Taylor? Why in the name of sacrifice hasn’t the former combat Marine spoken out?

Surely it cannot be because he gives Putin a pass on this hideous action against our service personnel, as Trump has done. Or perhaps he fears some retribution from a president who I doubt seriously at this moment even knows of Rep. Taylor’s existence in the U.S. House of Representatives.

I, too, am a veteran of a foreign war. I didn’t serve in combat in Vietnam, but I am quite certain I would be horrified knowing that a foreign power had put bounties on the heads of my brothers in arms.

Why, then, has Rep. Taylor remained eerily silent on this matter as he campaigns for re-election? And, yes, I have seen the TV ads touting his service in Afghanistan. Go figure.

national news

Oh, the irony is rich

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I am trying to understand the irony of Donald Trump’s assertion that a Joe Biden victory will come only if the election in November is “rigged.” The ironic richness is beyond belief.

The Russian government interfered in our 2016 presidential election. Its aim was to help Trump defeat Hillary Clinton. Moreover, the Russians intended to sow confusion and suspicion in our sacred electoral system.

Think of it! The guy the Russians wanted to win four years ago is now doing the Russians’ work for them! The president of the United States is asserting that Joe Biden can win only if the election is rigged.

Trump doesn’t provide a scintilla of proof of what he suggests would occur. Yet he is now mounting a prejudicial campaign against an electoral system he took an oath to protect and defend. Yes, think also of that … if you dare.

The presidential oath contains a clause that compels the nation’s head of state to protect the very system that puts him in office. The U.S. Constitution undergirds the entire process. Yet the president is now threatening some unspecified action to challenge the results of a free and fair election if it doesn’t produce the result he prefers.

I keep circling back to what happened in 2016. You heard him encourage the Russians to search for Hillary Clinton’s missing e-mails, right? The Russian government led by Vladimir Putin commenced its attack on our system that very day. At Trump’s invitation! Was the 2016 election rigged? Did it produce an electoral result that was, shall we say, illegitimate? 

So now we have arrived in the here and now. Donald Trump, having benefited in some fashion from foreign interference in the previous election, is threatening to undermine the results of the next presidential election. He bases his threat on allegations he cannot prove. He is sowing the same seeds of doubt that his Russian benefactors did four years ago.

The irony is rich. It’s also dangerous.

national news

Let’s hold off on the victory dance

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I feel the need to douse the victory dances I am seeing around the country as we head toward the home stretch in this highly bizarre presidential election season.

Joe Biden is leading in every serious polling survey. His lead over Donald Trump varies from around 12 percent (from GOP-friendly Rasmussen) to 16 percent. The Bidenistas smell blood in the water. They watch Donald Trump continue to raise the coronavirus pandemic as a talking point, all as Trump continues to downplay the seriousness of the infection that has felled him, his wife and two dozen or so of his top White House aides.

Yes, Trump appears to be self-destructing before our eyes.

However … and it pains me to say this, Donald Trump should not be left for politically dead. This guy is quite capable of doing anything he needs to stay in power. Were it not for the relentless attacks he leveled against his 2016 opponent — with a big assist from FBI director James Comey’s decision to reopen the “email scandal” — we would be talking today about President Hillary Clinton’s effort to win a second term.

I share the view that Donald Trump is crazy as a loon. He is infected with a virus that could kill him. I don’t want that to happen, I merely am acknowledging the obvious.

Trump is not without some weapons of his own. One of them sits in the Kremlin, where Russian goons are working as we sit here to ensure his re-election.

We “only” have 27 days to go, but that is a lifetime in politics, as the saying goes. Joe Biden needs to campaign as if he is behind by double digits. I will be able to breathe freely and easily once we get all the ballots counted and Joe Biden piles up significantly more votes than Donald Trump.

national news

It’s official: Trump is nuts

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I have concluded that Donald J. Trump is crazier than a loon, that his butter has slipped off his noodles, that he is certifiably nuttier than a fruitcake.

How else can one explain why in the name of civil discourse he has rejected a bipartisan presidential debate commission recommendation that he and Joe Biden “debate” each other online in a virtual town hall format next week?

I cannot.

The commission made the call because — yep, you got it — Donald Trump is infected with a potentially fatal disease, one that has killed more than 210,000 Americans during the COVID pandemic. Trump and first lady Melania Trump now are among the 7 million-plus Americans who have been diagnosed with the killer virus.

He isn’t out of the woods. Trump likely will not be out of the woods when debate time rolls around next week.

So what does the Macho Man in Chief want to do? He wants to meet with Biden in the same room in Miami. This is crazy. It’s nuts. It’s, um … insane!

There is now open speculation that the intense drugs Trump is taking has affected his judgment. He has been given, reportedly, a healthy dose of steroids to combat the infection. Some doctors have said the meds can alter a patient’s mental acuity. Trump, though, keeps bellowing and boasting that he hasn’t felt this good in “20 years.” C’mon, Mr. President.

Look, I want him and the first lady to recover fully from the illness. I do not want him, though, to put anyone else in jeopardy, which is precisely what he would do by insisting on an in-person face-off with the Democratic challenger, Joe Biden.

Astonishing, man!

national news

That’s more like it …

1 Comment

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

If that first Joe Biden-Donald Trump brawl turned out to be an unwatchable fiasco, we got something a whole lot more civil tonight.

That’s about it.

Vice-presidential nominees Kamala Harris and Mike Pence chided each other. They refused to answer direct questions. All told, though, it was much more of what we think of as a “debate,” given that they were able to answer each other’s accusatory rhetoric.

I suppose one takeaway was how Vice President Pence talked over Sen. Harris’s answers, to which she would scold him, “I am talking, Mr. Vice President.”

To her credit, Harris didn’t interrupt Pence … except perhaps for a time or two.

I remain committed to supporting the Joe Biden-Kamala Harris ticket. Based on what I witnessed tonight, Pence did nothing to persuade me to even think about supporting his side.

He didn’t answer questions related to the pandemic and his role as leader of the White House response team; Pence sought to pivot at times from a direct question to speak about an unrelated issue.

As for Harris, I just wish she would have answered the question about whether she supports adding to the Supreme Court if the Senate confirms Amy Coney Barrett as the next justice. She danced away from it.

Still, I declare Kamala Harris the winner by a split decision.

The Biden-Harris ticket remains in the lead. I just hope now that they can hold onto it through the end of this most unusual campaign.

national news

Who’s the man of faith?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I am sharing two pictures that showed up on my Facebook page today. They depict two presidents of the United States.

You know who they are.

The guy in the first picture is revered by the evangelical Christian movement. They like Donald Trump’s court appointments. They like his so-called “conservative” values he mouths when he hears them touted by right-wing radio and TV talking heads. The evangelicals give him a pass for the flings about which he has boasted, such as with the young woman pictured with him. Hey, no problem, they say. He’s one of us! Good grief!

The other president served a single term from 1977 to 1981. He teaches a Sunday school class at his church in Plains, Ga. Jimmy Carter also builds houses for poor folks as part of Habitat for Humanity.

The evangelical Christian movement sought actively in the 1980 campaign to deny him a second term as president. They preferred another fellow, Ronald Reagan, whose own commitment to matters of faith had been questioned as well, as he rarely darkened the doors of churches.

Jimmy Carter is the real deal. He just turned 96 years of age. He has battled cancer and has been the target of pundits who claim unfairly that he was a “failed president.”

I do not consider myself an “evangelical,” although I do profess my faith openly and joyfully. Still, I am left to wonder about the priorities of those who stand with a lying, conniving philanderer and who scorn a man who practices the faith in which he is committed deeply.

national news

Mr. VPOTUS? Answer this one

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Vice-presidential political debates always should be deemed critical to a campaign, given that the principals involved are vying to be next in line to the presidency of the United States.

Tonight’s encounter with Sen. Kamala Harris and Vice President Mike Pence has taken on new urgency. I’ll state the obvious reason first: the age of the president and his Democratic Party challenger.

Donald Trump is 74; former VP Joe Biden is 77. I am not being ghoulish in determining that the age of the presidential candidates is a critical part of the VP debate. We need to assess whether either Sen. Harris or VP Pence is ready to become president at a moment’s notice.

We also have this COVID-19 matter. Perhaps you’ve heard, but Donald Trump is infected with a potentially fatal virus. He spent three days in the hospital. He returned to the White House and is continuing to pose an immediate threat to those around him by, um, refusing to wear a mask or observe “social distancing.”

This brings me to an essential question that Harris — or perhaps moderator Susan Page — needs to pose to Pence.

The VP heads the White House coronavirus response task force. Pence needs to answer this question: If you are seeking to stay in office, how is it that you not only have failed to protect Americans — more than 200,000 of whom have died from this disease — but you also failed to protect the president of the United States? 

A host of related questions can arise from that. Why haven’t you insisted at Donald Trump observe medical experts’ warnings? Are you leading by example? Is the task force performing a worthwhile function if POTUS is ignoring your advice? How can you defend the president’s conduct when he jeopardizes the health of those around him?

I believe Pence’s record as head of the response task force needs careful examination in tonight’s encounter.

national news

POTUS affirms decision to ignore him

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I have long held to my assertion that Donald Trump’s words aren’t worth heeding.

He has shown just today that my belief holds water, that Donald Trump isn’t to be heeded on anything.

Trump has contradicted medical experts regarding COVID-19. He mocked Joe Biden for wearing a mask, then came down with the virus. He went home after just 70 hours at Walter Reed Medical Center and I believe he is spreading the disease as we sit here within the White House.

Then he fired off an astonishing Twitter message that ended White House negotiation with congressional Democrats over a possible coronavirus relief package until after the Nov. 3 election.

There you have it. This man is nuts. Donald Trump cannot be trusted to tell the truth; he cannot speak rationally or reasonably. Trump is out of his mind.

It might be the meds he is taking to combat the COVID-19 virus that has infected him. Trump reportedly is taking steroids, which might have affected his judgment.

Be that as it is, I will continue to ignore anything that flies out of Donald Trump’s pie hole.

national news

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.