Tag Archives: Joe Biden

media news

What’s next, post-Trump?

By JOHN KANELIS

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Yes, I do think at times of matters that take my brain into outer space.

One of them has popped into my noggin and it has to do, not surprisingly, with Donald John Trump.

I have spent a lot of emotional energy on High Plains Blogger commenting on the foibles of Trump and the presidency he inherited. What will happen to this blog once Donald Trump exits the White House? You probably haven’t thought about it, as you have many other things to occupy your mind. Truth be told, so do I, but I still have time to ponder things such as this.

I am supremely confident that this blog will continue. For all I know it might even flourish.

The world is huge. We have this pandemic that is likely to stay with us well past Trump’s time as president, which I hope ends in January 2021. We have many existential threats facing us: climate change, race relations/civil unrest, war and peace, terror threats.

There also will be plenty of wreckage left behind by Donald Trump that the next president — and I want it badly to be Joe Biden — will have to clean off the deck.

You see, all of this will require my attention. I intend to attend to all of it in due course as we move past the Donald Trump Era of Political Malfeasance.

I also have other matters to ponder, the “life experience” stuff that occasionally gets my attention. I want to continue chronicling the joy of being parents to Toby the Puppy; we have this eternal retirement journey on which we have embarked and I will discuss that as well with you.

Donald Trump may think he’s bigger than the presidency. He isn’t. The office will recover once he is gone. Trump damn sure isn’t bigger than High Plains Blogger. It, too, will go on.

national news

Wary of transition prep

I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised at news that Joe Biden is hiring seasoned political hands to plan a transition from one presidency to another.

We are in the midst of a competitive presidential election contest. Biden is leading Donald Trump in most of those public opinion polls. So I guess it stands to reason that Biden would start thinking, um, strategically.

I say all of this with a knot in my gut. That old trick knee of mine is throbbing. I am getting the heebie-jeebies.

Of all the elections I have watched since I was old enough to know what they mean, none has piqued my desire more than this one. I want Joe Biden to defeat Donald Trump; I want Biden to beat Trump like a drum; I want there to be no doubt over the winner.  I want Trump to exit my White House and I want him to disappear from public view forever.

OK, I know that last thing is impossible. Trump won’t do anything of the sort.

However, when I read that Biden has hired former South Bend, Ind., mayor (and former Democratic Party primary presidential candidate) Pete Buttigieg, former acting U.S. attorney general Sally Yates and former national security adviser Susan Rice for his transition team, I get, um, nervous. Extremely nervous.

The backdrop of all this involves the dread I feel about the measures Trump well could employ to snap victory from the jaws of defeat down the stretch of this campaign, which is what he did in 2016. Can he do it again? Well, yeah … do ya think?

Then there’s also the threat that Trump would cheat to secure a victory. Is he capable of doing that, too? I believe he is fully capable of trying anything. Anything!

A Biden transition team is an important component to secure as early as possible. It all presumes that Joe Biden’s standing will hold up as the campaign hurtles toward the finish line.

Through it all my fear — and the prospect does frighten me — is that Trump will be able to replicate the stunner of a victory he pulled off four years ago.

Oh, how I want the next 58 days to speed by.

national news

Avoiding the ‘horse race’

The coverage of the Joe Biden-Donald Trump race for president is testing my patience.

It is so heavily focused on the “horse-race” aspect of the effort. Who’s up? Who’s down? Trend lines? Statistical probabilities? Betting odds?

It’s making my head spin.

If the 2016 campaign taught us anything, it ought to have taught us to dive much more deeply into the issues driving the campaign than the horse race aspect of it. Hillary Clinton won more votes than Trump. But she lost the race. You know the drill: Trump won enough Electoral College votes to eke out a victory, only to lie relentlessly about his “landslide” victory over Hillary.

In fact, though, Hillary’s final vote total reflected almost exactly what the average of the polls showed on Election Day.

But we now have a new contest. Joe Biden is “ahead” at the moment. I just don’t want to get fixated on that part of the campaign. I want to call attention on this blog to the differences in the candidates’ stance on issues … although it is damn near impossible to determine what Donald Trump thinks about anything of substance.

I’ll just have to persevere through the rest of this campaign. I will do my level best to ignore the polls. If only the media would stop reminding me hourly of where the candidates stand in relation to each other’s standing.

I’m ready to vote. I am ready for this chapter to end. I am ready to get on with the rest of the story, wherever it leads.

national news

Perfect end to campaign might produce chaotic transition of power

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My version of a perfect world includes Donald Trump losing the presidency of the United States to Joseph R. Biden in about, oh, 62 days.

It includes a significant Biden victory in both the actual ballots cast and in the Electoral College. Trump, though, is sending plenty of signals that he well might not go silently into the night, concede the contest, offer his full cooperation and then let the new team take over.

I have retired my trick knee, the one that betrayed me badly by allowing me to predict a Hillary Clinton victory in 2016.

So I want to offer this observation of what might occur if my perfect world plays out in November and we elect Joe Biden the next president.

The transition is going to be a cluster fu** of the first magnitude.

Does anyone really expect Trump to provide a smooth transition from one administration to the next one?

I am trying to imagine Joe and Jill Biden arriving at the White House to be greeted by Donald and Melania Trump. Do you see the couples smiling at each other, posing for the cameras?

Moreover, something tells me that no one should be surprised if Donald and Melania Trump don’t even attend the inaugural of the next president. Yes, I believe that Donald Trump is that much of a sore loser, that he would decide to forgo the boos that would rein down on him as he watches Biden take the oath of office.

Donald Trump’s entire presidency has been a case study in chaos and confusion. Why would anyone expect a transition to the next president to be anything other than what we have witnessed.

It won’t be pretty. However, political perfection need not always be a thing of beauty.

local news, national news

Going to vote early … on the first day

(AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)

I cannot even believe I am saying this, but I must blurt it out.

Texas opens its polling places for early voting on Oct. 13. I intend to be among the first in line to cast my ballot for president of the United States of America.

I will be wearing my mask. I’ll have my spray-on hand sanitizer in my pocket. I will keep a socially distant space between myself and the total strangers with whom I intend to be standing.

You see, this represents a monumental sea change for yours truly. I am one who is wedded to the pageantry of voting on Election Day. I have enjoyed Election Day voting since I cast my first ballot in the spring of 1972 when I voted in Oregon’s Democratic primary.

Every presidential election year since has seen my wife and me troop to the polls on Election Day.

Not this year.

The coronavirus pandemic has me worried about getting infected. My wife is even more militant about the measures we need to take than I am. Texas isn’t likely to join several other states in requiring mail-in voting, given our state’s political leadership and its fealty to Donald Trump, who suggests — wrongly, I have to say — that mail-in voting is fraught with corruption. He’s lying.

So my wife and I will troop to the polls on Oct. 13. We will cast our votes as early as possible. We want them logged into the high-powered electronic system they use in Collin County. I heard this week that the Allen Event Center will open as a voting center for county residents. It is a spacious venue that will enable voters to practice social distancing while casting their ballots. I will be there among those early voters.

You know who will get my presidential vote. It won’t be the incumbent. Joe Biden wasn’t my first choice among the huge field of Democrats running initially. Indeed, I really never found anyone among the field who stood out.

Biden is the last man standing. He endured the grueling process. He won a key endorsement on the eve of the South Carolina primary, which he then won handily … and he never looked back.

So now I’m all in for Joe.

The process through which he gets my support, though, is the element I want to underscore. We live in perilous times as the nation battles a pandemic that continues to kill Americans at a heartbreaking rate. I do not want to risk becoming infected.

So, if voting early enables me to do my civic duty proudly while staying safe from a killer virus, that’s the way it’s going to be.

national news

Is the POTUS going bonkers?

We hear this nonsense about Joe Biden’s mental acuity coming from political allies of Donald Trump.

It makes me laugh out loud. Why?

Well, Donald Trump — to my eyes and ears — is exhibiting some signs his own self of going slightly nuts. I do not mean to suggest he is certifiably nutty, or even that he has lost a step or three in the mental acuity department.

I do mean to ask out loud why Trump is fomenting conspiracy theories about “rigged” elections. Have you watched Trump speak at those rallies of late? The guy cannot craft a cogent message. He has yet to tell us what he intends to do in a (God forbid!) second term as president.

There have been some tell-all tales published of late that disclose reports of shady business dealings, of how the first lady and the first daughter cannot stand the sight of each other.

My goodness, I cannot keep up with the madness I am witnessing in the White House.

Trump is out of control. Just think that this is the guy in control of the nuclear launch codes.

But … his fans think he’s the bee’s knees. Go figure.

local news

No signs or bumper stickers

I had hoped since I became a “civilian” who had retired from daily print journalism that I could place a bumper sticker on my vehicle and a sign in my front yard proclaiming my support for a presidential candidate.

Then I took on a freelance gig writing for a weekly newspaper company. So … my “civilian” days are over for the time being.

There’s another concern that I am a bit reluctant to divulge, but I will anyhow. It’s a concern over whether my stated preference for the Joe Biden-Kamala Harris ticket for president/vice president would attract vandals.

We happen to live in Trump Country, which is home to some extremely zealous admirers of the current president of the United States. I don’t begrudge them their zeal on behalf of their guy. I do begrudge how some of them might react to the other part of the country that favors the election of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.

The last bumper sticker I put on my vehicle was in 1968, when Robert F. Kennedy ran for president. I wasn’t old enough to vote then, but I wanted my friends and neighbors in Oregon to know I wanted RFK to be elected president that year.

Fate, tragically, intervened.

I went into the Army that year. I came out in 1970. I enrolled in college and became involved in the 1972 campaign of George McGovern. I didn’t display a bumper sticker.

Then I went to work for newspapers. I stayed the course for nearly 37 years. During that time I adhered to the mostly unwritten rule that I shouldn’t reveal my political bias with a bumper sticker or a yard sign. Reporters are supposed to present the image of political neutrality.

So here we are, much farther down a long and winding road. I will honor the unwritten neutrality rule that reporters should follow for as long as I am reporting on the community to which I am assigned.

These are extremely contentious times, too. So I will protect my motor vehicle or my home from being damaged by those who disagree with my choice for president and vice president.

national news

Biden hits back … hard!

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Joseph R. Biden Jr. today emerged from his Wilmington, Del., basement and delivered what I believe could become a theme in his attempt to unseat Donald Trump from the presidency of the United States.

His message, in summary, is that the violence we are witnessing in some communities are not the product of a future Biden administration; it happening now, in real time, during the Trump administration.

And yet Trump and his fellow Republicans are seeking to portray Democratic presidential nominee Biden as a grim reminder of what might happen if he is elected president in November.

Biden stepped onto the stage in Pittsburgh today and said, in effect: What the hell are you talking about? The nation today is unsafe and it’s happening on Donald Trump’s watch!

Well, this is the kind of response that Biden will need to deliver as the presidential campaign heads toward its final sprint.

Trump wants to change the narrative from the pandemic, which he is ignoring while it continues to kill about 1,000 Americans daily. He wants us to talk instead about protests that, sadly, have turned into riots. But … wait! It’s happening now! Donald Trump vowed to protect Americans. Is he doing it? No. He is doing nothing of the sort! Nor is he doing anything to correct the economic collapse that has wiped out all the jobs created in the past decade.

I am the very last person on Earth to give a professional politician any campaign advice. I just sit out here in the Peanut Gallery, wringing my hands while worrying if the candidate I prefer is able to persuade enough of my countrymen and women that he is the one we should elect to the nation’s highest office.

What I heard today from Joe Biden suggests to me that the guy I want — that would be Biden — is up to the task at hand.

national news

Conway delivers parting gift

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Thank you, Kellyanne Conway, for the parting gift you delivered as you prepare to return to some semblance of a private life.

The soon to depart senior adviser to Donald Trump has said out loud what many of us have thought all along, which is that that more rioting, looting and violence occurs the better it is for Donald Trump’s re-election chances.

According to Business Insider: “The more chaos and anarchy and vandalism and violence reigns, the better it is for the very clear choice on who’s best on public safety and law and order,” Conway said during an interview on “Fox and Friends.”

Gosh who do you think to whom she refers? In other words, according to Conway, Trump wants the rioting to continue.

Let’s roll that around for a brief moment.

Presidents of the United States usually seek to calm roiling waters. They usually seek to quell national tensions with speeches that appeal to our better angels. They want stability, calm, peace and quiet in our cities.

Not this clown. Not Donald Trump. If we are to believe Kellyanne Conway — who is leaving her office this week to spend more time repairing the damage done to her family — Trump is so damn concerned about re-election he wants to fan the anger that simmers in places like Portland, Kenosha, Minneapolis. Trump refuses to speak to the protesters or to even say the names of the individuals who have died at the hands of rogue cops.

Many of us out here in Flyover Country are left to wonder about what is going through what passes for Donald Trump’s mind. Well, we don’t need to wonder any longer. Kellyanne Conway has laid it out there for us in plain view.

Donald Trump wants the chaos to continue.

I wish Conway well as she steps away from the White House. I also want to thank her for telling us what I believe to be the truth about what motivates Donald Trump effort to stay in power.

I hope it helps derail the Donald Trump re-election train.

national news

Swift Boat fiends are back

You’ll recall how 2004 Democratic Party presidential nominee John Kerry was defamed by those who sought to portray his heroic Vietnam War experience as a falsehood.

The term “Swift Boat” became a verb. You know, how Kerry was “Swift Boated” by the liars who launched the scurrilous attacks on the former Navy officer’s heroism while patrolling the rivers of South Vietnam.

Well, guess what, ladies and gents. The folks who engineered that hideous campaign are getting back into the game. They are planning a multimillion-dollar ad campaign aimed at bringing down the candidacy of the current Democratic nominee, Joe Biden.

Granted, Biden didn’t serve in the military, but he well might be receiving his version of the Swift Boat treatment from the political action committee that wants to support Donald Trump’s re-election.

They call themselves Preserve America. They will start advertising in swing states where Trump reportedly is vulnerable. As Politico reports: Preserve America’s first commercials will begin airing Tuesday in Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Arizona, Iowa, and Georgia. Roughly $25 million of the total buy will be invested on TV, a figure that nearly matches what America First Action and Priorities USA have spent on the airwaves over the course of the entire election cycle. The remaining $5 million will appear on digital platforms.

This is a frightening new aspect of this campaign, which everyone expects to head straight into the gutter as Trump’s mud-slinging machine kicks into high gear.

The Swift Boat defamation effort launched against John Kerry was despicable on its face. I am saddened to say I became acquainted with one of the Swift Boaters’ major benefactors, the late Texas oilman Boone Pickens. I regret terribly to this day never asking Pickens why he chose to underwrite the lies that Kerry’s enemies told about him and his valiant service during the Vietnam War. Well, that was then.

The here and now offers a stern warning about what lies ahead for the race between Joe Biden and Donald Trump.

My advice to the Biden team? Be ready to respond quickly and with all due vigor when they spread the lies we know are certain to come.