Tag Archives: 2024 election

Joe Biden

Run, Joe, run!

As a general rule, I am not inclined to presume what incumbent officeholders should do, whether to run for re-election or call it quits.

I’ll make an exception right now: President Joe Biden should run for re-election in 2024. 

OK, so why the change? It’s because I believe he is doing a good job as president and that he is prepared to take on another four years as our head of state and commander in chief.

I do not buy into the rumors about alleged cognitive decline. I know about the verbal gaffes. He’s been making rhetorical mistakes for decades. It’s nothing new; it’s likely an after-effect from the stuttering condition he suffered as a child.

I have no earthly idea who the Republicans will nominate in 2024. Given the GOP’s obstructionist nature since they lost the presidency in 2020, it likely won’t matter who carries the party banner into the political battle against the Democrats.

To that end, I hope it’s the president who carries his party’s flag onto the field.

Joe Biden has managed to get Congress to approve gun violence legislation, to back his infrastructure revamping plan, to help reduce the cost of prescription drugs. On his watch, more jobs have been created in a single presidential term than any time in history. The jobless rate is now at pre-COVID pandemic levels. President Biden has persuaded our allies to back the U.S. economic sanction effort to fight the Russians’ illegal invasion of Ukraine. NATO is more united than ever.

Yes, Joe Biden has worked to do to combat the illegal immigration problem. My belief is that he is working daily to fix it. Yes, despite the threats of impeachment and further obstruction, I am going to retain my faith in Joe Biden’s ability to work the complexities of government in search of a solution.

He’s been at it for decades. Joe Biden isn’t ready to stop.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news, political news

Going to ignore Trump

I am going to make a solemn pledge and I expect y’all to hold me to it.

I hereby intend to ignore Donald J. Trump’s “candidacy” for president of the United States. His proclamations on the campaign trail will mean not a damn thing to me. I do not believe a single word that flies out of his mouth.

Now, I will keep both eyes on his legal trouble. I will have plenty to say on those issues as they unfold. His alleged candidacy? Not a chance.

There might be an occasion where Trump says something I consider defamatory. I’ll weigh my options then, take them on a case-by-case basis.

He won’t have an original idea to offer. He won’t offer a view for the future. He will continue to litigate The Big Lie involving alleged “widespread voter fraud” and the 2020 election.

There is no point in commenting on any of that.

So there. You may take that to the bank.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Lame-duck Congress needs to soar

One usually doesn’t expect much from lame ducks, whether they are politicians or the governing bodies in which they serve.

That is decidedly not the case involving the current Congress, which is now officially entering its lame-duck status. Those of us who are concerned about the status of good government and of congressional investigations into the effort to overturn a free and fair election are expecting a great deal out of this lame duck Congress.

I shall specify.

Republicans who are taking over leadership of the next Congress say they intend to investigate — get ready for it! — Hunter Biden’s business dealings. Yes, President Biden’s son is being targeted for investigation. What about inflation? What about the Ukraine War? What about climate change? Or gun violence? Hey, that’ll have to wait until the GOP finishes its probe into Hunter Biden’s business activity! What utter crap!

Then we have the 1/6 committee’s report. The House select panel is finishing up its own probe into Donald J. Trump’s effort to overturn the election that tossed him out of office. The committee led by Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., needs to get its findings on the record. House Republican leaders are all but certain to toss it aside once they assume power.

The House GOP’s slim majority apparently gives the nut job wing of the Republican caucus even more power. The MAGA/Big Liar cabal is going to lean hard on the presumptive speaker, Kevin McCarthy, to do its bidding. It will be fascinating in the extreme to see whether McCarthy resists their demands and gives the more establishment members of his caucus — not to mention the Democrats — more of his attention.

McCarthy has shown a cowardly tendency, sad to say, toward kowtowing to the nut jobs — starting with the Nut Job in Chief, one Donald John Trump. McCarthy stood on the floor immediately after the assault on the Capitol on 1/6 and declared that Trump was singularly responsible for inciting the assault on our government. Then he ventured to Mar-a-Lago, shook Trump’s hand and mugged for the cameras as if to tell the Insurrectionist in Chief, “Hey, it’s OK now. I was just kidding when I said those things. I’m with ya.”

Thus, the lame-duck Congress becomes important. Highly important, in fact.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Donald Trump

Trump jumps in again

Donald J. Trump today announced his intention to run for president a third time.

You’ll have to excuse me for refusing to push any panic buttons. He will not be elected POTUS in November 2024. He might not even be nominated by the Republican Party. Indeed, he might pull out of the race once the criminal indictments pour in.

He garnered fewer votes than Hillary Clinton in 2016 but was elected on the basis of the Electoral College victory he scored. I accept that he won. Trump collected 7 million fewer votes than Joe Biden in 2020 and lost his re-election. I embraced that outcome.

What happens now? Beats me.

I do know this: The ex-POTUS is going to make an ass of himself.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Donald Trump

Trump’s ‘big announcement’

Donald John Trump has declared that in one week he is going to make a “big announcement.”

He’ll do it in Florida. The chatterers out there are suggesting out loud that he’s going to announce a third run for the presidency in 2024.

Not … so … fast.

I remain skeptical of The Donald’s launching another bid for the White House. It well might be — but do not hold me to this, please — that his “big announcement” might be something quite different.

I’ll offer this as a totally uneducated guess: Trump well might decide that the Republican Party won’t nominate him, believing he cannot win an election against whoever the Democrats nominate.

Then we have the myriad legal issues standing in the way. The New York attorney general has sued him for a quarter-billion bucks; Fulton County, Ga., prosecutors might indict him for coercing election officials in the 2020 election; and then we have the U.S. Justice Department pondering whether to indict him for inciting the insurrection on 1/6.

Trump’s “big announcement” might include a vow to fight all those so-called “witch hunters” in an effort to clear his name … if that is at all possible.

I ain’t predictin’ any of this is going to happen. I merely remain skeptical that he wants to be deemed a “loser” yet again.

I will await his announcement, though, with bated breath.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

legal news, national news

Trump the crook to run again? Hah!

Donald J. Trump keeps dropping hints along the trail, kinda like breadcrumbs, that he is “strongly considering” a third campaign for the presidency.

I don’t think so.

He might announce his intention to run. He might go through the motions. He might act as if he’s in the hunt for the White House.

I just continue to believe that another U.S. citizen is going to have plenty to say about whether The Donald runs again.

That would be Attorney General Merrick Garland, who I continue to believe is preparing to indict the former one-term, twice-impeached POTUS of multiple felonies.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Donald Trump, legal news, national news

Trump Derangement Syndrome?

Critics of this blog have accused its author — that’s me — of suffering from something called Trump Derangement Syndrome.

I’m not entirely sure I know what it means, other than I gather that critics believe I spend too much time and emotional capital commenting on the actions of the immediate past POTUS.

Please forgive this bit of candor, but a lot of it has to do with Donald J. Trump himself. He keeps thrusting himself into the news. Talking heads keep telling us that Trump is motivated primarily by his insatiable thirst for attention.

That thirst is driving this silly — no, stupid — idea that he will run for president again in 2024. I am not convinced he is going to run but, by golly, he’s going to keep his name in front of our faces for as long as he can. That presence in our national consciousness is going to last until, oh let’s see, when gets indicted, tried and sentenced to time in the slammer.

I don’t know if any of that will happen. I do know, though, that for as long Trump is walking and talking among us — making news along the way — I’ll keep commenting on the things he says and does.

Bear in mind — and perhaps some of you have noticed — that I don’t flail at every single pronouncement that flies out of the former Numbskull in Chief’s trap. I am picking my shots.

Will they still call it Trump Derangement Syndrome? Yeah. Probably.

I’ll stay with it for as long as it matters.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news, Donald Trump, Joe Biden, legal news, national news, national security, political news

Will Trumpism outlive its founder?

It has been said by more than one commentator that the movement Donald J. Trump spawned will live long past the time he no longer is a political factor.

Pardon the skepticism, but I don’t think that’s necessarily the case.

I’ll start with this notion: I have doubt that Donald Trump is (a) going to run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024 and (b) that the GOP has gone totally braindead to nominate him if he does enter the fray.

The Republican Party has shown itself in the past, oh, six years to be a party full of gullible numbskulls who are willing to swallow the swill delivered by Trump. They ignore the threat he continues to pose to our democratic process; they give him a pass on the idiocy that flies out of his mouth; they proclaim a desire to “defund the FBI” after the feds find top-secret documents squirreled away in his Florida home.

So, what is going to happen to Trump’s movement — his cult — once he’s no longer a political player. The way I see it, and I’ll admit it is from the cheap seats, whatever “movement” that Trump has stoked will disappear. Why keep telling The Big Lie about a “stolen election” if the Main Man is no longer calling the shots?

I am going to hold tightly onto my own hope that the law’s lengthy arm is going to corral The Donald sometime soon. The Justice Department is examining whether Trump broke the law in taking those classified documents from the White House; the House select 1/6 committee is considering whether to ask for indictment related to the insurrection that Trump clearly incited; the Fulton County (Ga.) district attorney is looking into whether Trump broke state election laws by demanding that officials “find” enough votes to overturn that state’s 2020 presidential election result.

Oh, and the New York attorney general already has filed a $250 million lawsuit against the Trump Organization for allegedly falsifying its worth to obtain favorable loans.

We have, as they said in a movie, “a target-rich environment.”

The cult leader, it appears to me, is going down in flames. May the fire consume what is left of the movement that bears his name.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Joe Biden, media news, national news, political news

Hey, Biden says ‘I intend’ to run

2 Comments
(AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

President Biden made some news tonight during his interview with CBS News’ Scott Pelley on “60 Minutes.”

The president kinda walked back his earlier statement in which he declared he would run for a second term in 2024. In the broadcast tonight, he said he “intends” to seek re-election but that a final decision hasn’t been made.

Hmm. Well, what does one say about that?

It tells me that Joe Biden is keeping his options as open as possible, given the topic that Pelley was discussing with the president.

His age. Biden is the oldest man ever to hold the office of POTUS. The president expressed supreme confidence in his ability to do the job. “Watch me,” he urged Pelley.

OK, I get it, Mr. President. I don’t have a personal issue with Biden walking back a bit his earlier declaration of a re-election effort. I think it’s smart for the president to say only what he intends to do.

A lot of things can happen. They do and this president, who’s been victimized by fate and tragedy in unimaginable ways, at this moment is no longer a declared candidate for president in 2024.

At least not yet.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news, national news, political news

Election deniers win now .. but rejection is in order

All those wacky Republican election deniers appear to be winning their primary election battles, setting them up for contests against serious political candidates in the fall.

The task now falls on responsible voters in states such as Pennsylvania, Florida, Arizona, Nevada and the Dakotas to toss them out on their ear and elect individuals who haven’t swilled The Big Lie concoction being offered by Donald J. Trump and his cabal of cultists.

I am going to endorse the notion — admittedly with an abundance of caution — the idea that the election deniers’ presence on the fall midterm election ballot is tailor-made for Democrats wishing to put the Big Liars in their place.

My caution isn’t because I dispute their notion. It is because I am not sure that American voters necessarily are smart enough to rise up against these threats to our democratic process.

Think of what might happen. A GOP candidate for Pennsylvania governor could appoint a secretary of state and have that individual actually reject the outcome of the 2024 election if it happens to go in Democrats’ favor. Same thing could happen in Arizona.

The task now is for voters in several key states to deny them the power to enact such craven policies. I won’t surrender to their political idiocy. Neither should anyone else.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com