Tag Archives: Joe Biden

national news

POTUS is as sharp as ever

I am going to offer a very brief warning to those who read this blog and who insist on hurling epithets at President Biden, alleging that he’s too old to run for a second term and that he’s lost his mental acuity.

Your blogger, that’s me, won’t accept that criticism or allow it on this blog. That’s right! I am going to keep my eyes peeled for those who insist that Joe Biden has lost his snap.

He has lost nothing. The president remains sharp and focused on the job of protecting us against enemies foreign and domestic. He is faithful to the oath he took when he became president.

Therefore, I simply am not going to allow that kind of defamatory criticism see light on this platform.

Are we clear? Good!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

media news

Free press is ‘essential’

President Joe Biden stood at the podium this weekend at the White House Correspondents Dinner and made a stern and steadfast declaration about the value of a free press.

“A free press is essential to a democratic society,” he said, “and it is not the enemy.”

I want to offer a brief endorsement of the president’s statement, as it reflects the kind of understanding that a free, aggressive and unfettered press brings to those in power and to those who make decisions that affect our lives each day.

I feel the need to offer this endorsement because of the pummeling the press has been taking during the past, oh, six or seven years. As a member of what the right wingers and the MAGA crowd calls the “mainstream media,” I have taken great personal offense at the epithets being hurled at hardworking, dedicated reporters who signed on to report truthfully and fairly.

Presidents of both political parties, with one notable exception, have understood the role that a free press plays in holding government officials accountable. Does anyone in power like negative reporting on his or her activities? Of course not! However, to a person — again, except one — acknowledge that criticism simply goes with the territory.

Donald J. Trump launched the war against the media with his proclamation that the media are “the enemy of the people.” He turned “fake news” into a cliche that his followers picked up. I won’t belabor the obvious hypocrisy in that label coming from the godfather of fake news and outright lies. I do, though, want to suggest that news that runs counter to officials’ point of view isn’t “fake”; it is the truth that officials just don’t always want to hear.

President Biden’s inherent understanding of the media’s role in keeping him and the government he inherited accountable for their actions is a welcome return to what has been the standard since the beginning of the Republic.

May the press always remain free of government interference … and able to keep our government’s feet to the fire.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Biden: ‘Watch me’

OK, Mr. President. I’m going to keep an eye on you … in fact, I’ll keep both eyes on you as you navigate your way to what I hope is a second term as president of the United States.

I am glad you announced your intention to seek re-election. I am profoundly disappointed and astonished that I have overstated the intelligence of rank-and-file Republicans, who reportedly still want to nominate a twice-impeached and indicted former POTUS.

Go … figure.

In some perverse way, I would welcome a rematch between you and the moron you defeated in 2020. I am not going to spend much time worrying about him. I am going to spend the bulk of my political attention on you, sir, and hope that you continue to maintain good health as you continue to lead the nation while campaigning for another term in the White House.

And, yes, I am glad as well that your re-election announcement ad featured Vice President Kamala Harris, who I believe has served you — and the country — well in her history-making role as second-in-command of the executive branch of government.

Your age isn’t a plus. That’s a given. What also should be a given is the record of accomplishment you have piled up in your first term as president.

With that, I will wish you Godspeed, Mr. President, as you launch the final political campaign of your career.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Biden set to go again?

Joe Biden doesn’t need any advice from little ol’ me out here in Flyover Country … but he’s going to get some anyway.

Mr. President, let me be among the millions of Americans who voted for you in 2020 to wish you well as you launch your re-election effort. We hear it’s this week and that you’ll do it via an online platform of some sort.

Go for it!

The president has plenty to sell a public that seems embittered by the politics of the past half-dozen years. It appears that Joe Biden cannot do anything totally right in the eyes of a public that seems unwilling or unable to recognize success when it slaps ’em in the puss.

President Biden has gotten damn little help from his Republican “friends” in Congress. Democrats have held together on Capitol Hill to approve a number of key laws: gun safety rules, the Inflation Reduction Act, infrastructure repair and rebuilding.

Biden has spoken glowingly of his history of working well with Republicans. I guess it goes only so far as his record in the Senate and his eight-year stint at vice president. As POTUS? The GOP has dug in, many of ’em still angry that he defeated their hero in the 2020 presidential election.

I don’t want the president to re-litigate the previous election, which is what his defeated foe in 2020 keeps doing. Joe Biden should look to the future and tell us what he intends to do in a second term.

President Biden might need some help in ensuring he carries through on his agenda. Voters appear to be getting lathered up over the GOP’s insistence on banning abortion nationally, its resistance to gun safety measures and its haggling over the debt limit increase … and the failure to pay our debts sending the world’s economy into the crapper.

I said prior to the 2020 primary campaign that Joe Biden wasn’t my first pick. He ended up winning the Democratic nomination and, therefore, became my guy along with 81 million other Americans.

He’s my guy going into the 2024 election.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news

Biden shows needed reticence

Joe Biden is good enough of a politician and a lawyer to understand that when a political foe is being indicted for crimes that it is best to just keep his mouth shut.

It was reporters’ efforts to get the president to comment on Donald Trump’s indictment on multiple counts relating to the hush money payment he made to an adult film star that prompted Biden to declare that he won’t speak about Biden’s legal difficulty.

Why should he speak out? Indeed, no lawyer in America would ever counsel an active politician to weigh in on something such as Trump’s indictment.

You see, President Biden is both. An active pol and a man with a decent legal education.

Moreover, you might be willing to bet your last nickel that the president has instructed every member of the Cabinet, the White House staff and even the foreign service officials on duty to dummy up. Don’t talk to reporters about any of this! Got it? Good!

One of the axioms in politics is that when your adversaries are in trouble, it is best to just let ’em stew in their own sauce. Donald Trump’s difficulties are just beginning.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news

This is what POTUSes do!

Joe Biden wasted no time doing what presidents of the United States are supposed to do when disaster strikes the nation.

He issued a disaster declaration for Mississippi, which has been ravaged by tornadoes that killed more than 20 residents in that state and in neighboring Alabama. The federal government now has been ordered to expedite federal assistance to those who have lost property and loved ones.

Why is this worth mentioning? Let’s see. His immediate predecessor apparently based his decisions on matters such as this on whether the affected stated cast most of their votes for him in the previous presidential election.

Do you recall how POTUS 45 scolded California for its “forest management practices” while hedging on whether to issue a disaster declaration in the wake of the fires that ravaged thousands of acres of timberland? I don’t even remember whether he issued that declaration, but the point is that he made a big deal out of an issue because California didn’t support him in his first bid for office in 2016.

President Biden is not going to play that stupid game. Mississippi didn’t vote for him, either, but he stepped up and did what presidents are supposed to do: help all Americans in need.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Waiting for hell to freeze

Hell will have to fall into the deepest freeze imaginable for me to accept the poll findings that suggest that Donald Trump could actually defeat President Joe Biden in a head-to-head matchup in 2024 for the White House.

For the ever-lovin’ life of me I cannot fathom where or how or who is supporting the twice-impeached former POTUS as he pretends to seek the presidency for the third time.

He slithered into the White House in 2017 after narrowly defeating Hillary Clinton while losing the popular vote by 3 million ballots. Then he got thumped by Joe Biden in 2020, garnering 7 million fewer votes than the eventual president.

Between those two elections he got impeached twice by the House for violating his oath of office. He managed to piss off damn near every ally this nation has in the world. He vilified Americans who opposed his election. He went through four White House chiefs of staff, an untold number of Cabinet officials and behaved for all the world like a moron who didn’t know what the hell he was doing with all that executive power at his disposal.

Now he is on the verge of being indicted possibly by three prosecutors, two at the state level and then the U.S. attorney general.

Oh, did I mention the insurrection he incited on 1/6? There. I just did.

And yet he remains — reportedly — the favorite for the GOP presidential nomination next year. God help us all!

Trump said he’s going the distance regardless of any indictments that end up in his lap. Fine. I am just waiting for the hammer to drop on his severely coiffed noggin.

Someone among the officials examining the crimes I believe he committed is going to make history by indicting a former POTUS for the first time in our nation’s history. Look also for the others to follow suit when the first indictment falls out of the sky.

Meanwhile, someone will have to explain to me how this clown can pretend to be a serious contender for an office he damn near destroyed during the single term he occupied it.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

economic news

Taxing the rich: sensible

President Biden’s decision to seek greater tax loads for wealthy Americans makes sense on a couple of levels.

He unveiled his plan while announcing a proposed $7 trillion federal budget he said would reduce the deficit by $3 trillion over the next decade. Biden wants to protect programs such as Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act. As an elderly American patriot, I welcome the president’s initiative.

Taxing those who make more than 400 grand annually? That makes sense too.

It does because even by increasing the tax burden by a few percentage points will not make rich Americans “un-rich.” They’ll still be wealthy beyond belief. They just will have to pay more to finance the government from which they seek favors.

Billionaires will still be billionaires.

Moreover, it makes no sense to realize that working-class Americans pay more per capita in taxes than rich folks.

Spare me the argument that taxing rich Americans will harm the economy. It damn sure won’t! We’re all in this together, isn’t that right? So, make the rich men and women pay their fair share of taxes and — so help me! — find some method of closing those damn loopholes through which they avoid paying taxes.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

business news

Biden tax strategy makes sense

Joe Biden drew a few lines in the sand today with his budget proposal, but I want to look at just one of them with this brief post: tax policy.

The president has dared congressional Republicans to oppose his notion that those who earn $400,000 per year should pay more in taxes than those who earn less than that. Interestingly, that is the amount of money that Biden earns annually as president of the United States; that amount, plus first lady Jill Biden’s teaching salary and the assorted other income he receives puts him in the rich folks’ tax bracket.

Middle-class Americans won’t pay more in taxes, Biden said.

Fine. I’m all for that. As an American on a fixed income who makes a little scratch each year writing freelance articles for a weekly newspaper group and for a public radio station in North Texas, I don’t want to pay any more in taxes than I do already.

Too many uber-rich Americans perform the Houdini act of not paying taxes. Ditto for corporations, according to the president.

Joe Biden has positioned himself as being “for the average American” and has positioned his political foes — namely Republicans in Congress — as being in the corner of the “rich and powerful.”

Hmm. Which side am I going to take? Oh, wait! I am one of those average Americans for whom the president says he is fighting.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

economic news

Biden budget = political weapon

Let’s put it all on the table: President Biden’s announcement of a new federal budget proposal is aimed at a political audience, not at anyone in Congress who he can persuade to join him in the effort to advance the “values” he espouses.

Joe Biden ventured to Pennsylvania to unveil a budget he says will cut the federal deficit by $3 trillion over the next decade. That is, to borrow a phrase, a Big F****** Deal.

He wants to raises taxes on rich Americans and corporations. He wants to preserve Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act. The president wants to shore up our military, our national intelligence network, the fight for Ukraine’s sovereignty. Biden wants to make community college attendance free.

Is this going to fly with what he referred to continuously today with the “MAGA Republicans”? Not a chance, man!

Instead, he has laid out a predicate for his 2024 re-election effort, which many believe he will announce soon. President Biden is going to put congressional Republicans on record as opposing the very things he said he wants to do.

I am all in with what he wants to accomplish.

Of course, looming mightily over all this is the threat by Republicans to crash the world economy by allowing the United States to default on the national debt that it has accrued since the beginning of the Republic. The president made that point, too, telling Republicans that they had a hand in running up that debt and that the U.S. Constitution requires the nation to maintain its “full faith and credit.”

Republicans, particularly the know-nothings who comprise the MAGA cabal, need to understand that they cannot mess with the national debt without collapsing the entire world economy. Got it? They had better!

President Biden’s budget as he has presented it won’t get through Congress. A big part of me believes the president — who knows how Congress works — understands that, but he has thrown down the gauntlet and dared the GOP to pick it up.

johnkanelis_92@hotmaial.com