Tag Archives: Joe Biden

legal news

Will the ex-VP do the right thing?

Former Vice President Mike Pence often is held up as a paragon of moral rectitude, of unflinching loyalty to doing the right thing.

Well, we are going to learn — probably quite soon — whether the real man is true to his reputation.

A special counsel appointed to examine Donald Trump’s involvement in the 1/6 insurrection has subpoenaed Pence to testify before a grand jury. Pence was “in the room” when Trump exploded at him for his refusal to do Trump’s bidding on 1/6, which was to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

Pence said he couldn’t do it, that the law wouldn’t allow it; nor would the U.S. Constitution. He was only able to preside over a joint congressional session that had gathered that day to certify the Electoral College result that elected Joe Biden president of the United States. That wasn’t good enough for Trump and he berated the vice president to break the law and violate his constitutional oath.

Special counsel Jack Smith wants Pence to tell him under oath what we all know happened that fateful and hideous day.

Will the ex-VP declare some bogus form of executive privilege — which he is not entitled to do — or will he answer the summons to talk to the investigators and tell them the whole truth?

From my seat in the North Texas peanut gallery, it looks for all the world as if Jack Smith is getting ready to do something really significant in this probe. He just needs one of the key players in this drama to come clean on what he knew and when he knew it.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Joe Biden

Biden flexes his muscles

An 80-year-old president cannot possibly claim to have muscles as supple as they once were, but last night Joe Biden showed his opposition that he possesses plenty of fight as he prepares for the next phase of the presidency.

That involves what is lining up to be a spirited campaign for re-election.

The venue was a joint congressional session and the president’s annual State of the Union speech. The MAGA cult that comprises a good portion of the Republican caucus in the House decided to heckle the president at some curious and, frankly, dubious points. Such as when he talked about saving Medicare and Social Security.

He took ’em on in the moment. Frankly, we witnessed a side of the president I didn’t believe existed.

He was brilliant! He played the GOP fire-breathers like a cheap fiddle. Along the way he has set the stage for a 2024 presidential campaign that is going to be — at least for this partisan — fun to watch.

To be sure, the right-wing propagandists will portray the speech as nothing more than game-playing. They trotted out Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders to deliver the GOP response. Instead of offering policy alternatives, she leveled attack after attack on the “woke mob,” against “left-wing Democrats” and otherwise painted a grim portrait of a nation in decline.

Good grief! The state of our Union is as strong as it ever has been!

That all said, I want to be among the many commentators to applaud President Joe Biden for taking the fight straight to the opposition. He showed me that he has plenty left to offer the world’s greatest nation.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

military news

Balloons have been flying over U.S. for … how long?

Is there a chance on God’s good Earth that a top military officer’s declaration that the Chinese have been using spy balloons for years will stop the unfounded haranguing of President Biden over this latest matter?

Nope! Not a chance.

Still, it is worth noting what the commander of the North American Aerospace Defense Command has said about this practice by China.

Politico reports:

The military did not detect previous flights of Chinese spy balloons over the U.S. that took place during the Trump administration, a top general said Monday, due to a “gap” in the Defense Department’s ability to track certain airborne objects.

Gen. Glen VanHerck, head of North American Aerospace Defense Command, cited the issue as the reason that at least three spy balloon flights were not briefed to senior Trump officials at the time.

Top general says Trump-era spy balloons flew over the U.S. undetected – POLITICO

Republicans have blasting Joe Biden to smithereens because of the administration’s reportedly late response to the most recent People’s Republic of China space balloon. They have cited President Biden’s seemingly slow response to incompetence. Good grief! The president acted on advice from his top military command to wait until the balloon was over open water before shooting it down.

The action reportedly has angered the PRC. Too bad. Let ’em squawk. As for the GOP critics, once again they are playing politics with an issue of vital national security implications.

I’ll stick with Gen. VanHerck’s assertion that the PRC has done this prior to the Biden administration taking office. We didn’t know about their presence because the military intelligence network couldn’t detect them.

Where’s the GOP indignation on that matter?

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

media news

Free speech not always totally free

Many years in journalism taught me many valuable lessons about the law, the Constitution and people’s ability — or their occasional  inability — to abide by various rules.

Let’s examine one of the clauses contained in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the one that says “freedom of speech, or of the press” shall not be “abridged.”

Many people assume — incorrectly, in my view — that the free-speech clause means one can say anything they want anyone they choose without any consequence or punishment.

Wrong!

I’ll cite this blog as an example of what I mean. The Constitution protects bloggers such as me, but only to a point. It says the government should “make no law” that limits what people can say, but it does nothing to keep me from blocking people from popping off irresponsibly. It is, therefore, my call to determine who is being irresponsible.

When I see someone commenting on a public official, I seek to weigh the value of the individual’s comment. If it lends any value to the public debate, then bring it on … by all means!

I lost count long ago of the arguments I would have with readers of opinion pages I edited in Oregon and in Texas who would challenge my decision to nix commentaries submitted for publication. They would say “but the Constitution gives me the right to say what I want.” No … it doesn’t. It gives me the right, I would respond, to determine what is suitable for print.

I would tell the reader that they need to buy a printing press, load it with ink and paper and say whatever the hell they want to say.

Most recently, I have nixed commentaries on this blog that suggest that President Biden is suffering from “dementia.” I will not allow that defamatory comment to stand on my blog. If the individual whose comments I have blocked continue with that trash, then I will block that individual from using this venue for any purpose.

It is my right — under the Constitution — to do such a thing.

There. Are we clear? Good.

Have a great day.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

How does he do it?

How in the world — in the name of political sanity — can one explain Donald J. Trump’s bizarre hold on what remains of the Republican Party?

I keep seeing this polling data that has the the twice-impeached former president, who is headed for criminal indictment in the lead (for the moment) for the GOP’s presidential nomination in 2024.

Maybe I should be applauding this idiocy. Maybe I should welcome the fact that Trump, who is severely weakened by his moronic behavior and the acknowledgement among many leading GOP pols that he is doomed to fail, might well steal the nomination next year.

Hey, I am biased to the max against this moron. But you know that already. I want President Biden to win re-election next year. I ought to welcome a Trump candidacy. It would be run the way the first two were conducted: slipshod, chaotic, no-preparation, no-platform.

Hey, dude won in 2016. I get that. He lost in 2020 because he couldn’t formulate a vision for the future and then has continued to promote The Big Lie about voter fraud that did not exist.

So, I am going to relax for just a bit and not worry about Trump’s seeming standing among Republicans, who apparently are so damn gullible that they well might nominate a certifiable idiot.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Not a bad start for POTUS

Ron Klain has stepped down as White House chief of staff, turning the keys to the West Wing over to Jeff Zeist.

I watched Klain’s goodbye speech to the staff — and to President Biden — this week and was stunned at what Klain said the administration has been able to accomplish in just two years of the president’s (hopefully) first term in office.

He cited the infrastructure bill, climate change legislation, inflation reduction legislation, managing our involvement in Europe’s largest ground war since World War II, reducing the national budget deficit … and on and on.

Well, here’s the video of Klain’s speech. Let him tell the story.

Watch Ron Klain’s full speech as he steps down as White House chief of staff – YouTube

It’s no tall tale, though. I stand with President Biden as he continues to govern with a sense of compassion and idealism that too often gets trampled by the rough and tumble of D.C. politics.

Thanks for your service, Ron Klain. Don’t go too deeply into hiding, in case the president needs to call you for some advice.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

economic news

Who’s playing politics?

How in this good ol’ world can Republicans say with a straight face that Democrats are guilty of “playing politics” when the GOP has turned the politics-playing game into an art form.

Consider the upcoming fight over the debt ceiling.

A Republican president ran up 20% of the total national debt during his single term in office. Congressional Republicans were silent when Donald Trump managed that feat. The debt happens to be on the books already as money is already spent. Meanwhile, the U.S. Constitution calls for the “full faith and credit” to be free of the political games now being played.

Now that we have a Democrat in the White House, congressional Republicans want to hold the national debt as a weapon to use against Democrats. What the hell?

President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy met today to discuss this debt ceiling matter. McCarthy came out of that meeting and suggested the two men made progress in settling their disagreements.

I get that we need to control government spending. I’m fine with that as a matter of principle. However, the debt ceiling must be lifted to allow this nation to maintain its full faith and credit. Bringing the debt ceiling crashing down would bring financial ruin. That is the truth. How about raising the debt ceiling, which is always done, and then talk about looking for greater fiscal responsibility?

Refusing to raise the debt ceiling arguably is the most brazen act of political gamesmanship imaginable. Thus, when the GOP accuses Democrats of playing politics, they are projecting their own sin on their opponents.

It is beyond shameful.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Classified docs … are everywhere?

When in the world is this going to end, or will it ever end?

First we had Donald J. Trump pilfering classified documents — some of them top-secret docs — out of the White House and stashing them in his glitzy Florida mansion.

Then we learn that President Biden had a few documents in a think tank and then at his home in Delaware.

Now this … news that former Vice President Mike Pence had some classified documents in his house in Indiana.

What the hell?

The Biden docs were from his years as vice president and a few of them date back to his time in the Senate. Trump’s documents were solely from his single term as POTUS.

The find at the Pence house? Who knows their source or their contents?

This is beginning to feel like the tip of the proverbial iceberg. How many other top-flight pols who have left office are there to be discovered? I won’t name names. You know who I mean.

We have several living former presidents and vice presidents out there. We also have a number of former House speakers, Senate presidents pro tempore, key committee chairs and who knows who else possibly with documents that should have been turned in to the National Archives.

Let’s set aside the Trump matter. He has all but acknowledged publicly that he took the documents knowingly and with knowledge of their contents. The rest of ’em? That well might be the work of careless staffers who scarfed up the documents after senior officials had left office.

This is all beginning to have the feel and the appearance of an absurd bit of dark comedy. It’s damn near laughable … except that no one should be laughing.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

No similarity … seriously!

A friend posted this on social media, which I am sharing here: I believe it’s possible Biden doesn’t know how they got there … that staffers packed everything up carelessly. 

OK, let’s parse this for a brief moment.

The FBI keeps finding classified documents in President Biden’s home. They were put there after Biden served as vice president. Some of them date back to his time in the U.S. Senate.

Did the president knowingly stash them away? Did he do so with the expressed purpose of doing harm to our national security? C’mon!

Now we have the case of Donald John Trump. He took classified documents from the White House as he was leaving the place for the final time. He took them to Mar-a-Lago, Fla.

Trump has all but admitted taking the documents with full knowledge of their sensitivity. He has admitted to breaking the Presidential Papers Protection Act. He has said “they are mine.” He also has said he “declassified” the documents by “thinking about” declassifying them.

Is there an admission of wrongdoing in Trump’s response? Yep. I believe so. Has Joe Biden made any such admission? Has he said he knew he had those documents squirreled away? Nope.

Thus, my friend is onto something. A VP staffer was careless in handling the documents.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Biden plays into GOP attack strategy

What does one say about President Biden’s squirreling away of classified documents? Well, here’s what I have so far.

Joe Biden is playing directly into the Republicans’ strategy of attacking the president for anything at any time or for any political purpose.

It is particularly unsettling for those of us who continue to support Joe Biden to see this tempest erupt as Justice Department officials are examining a much-worse situation involving documents taken from the White House by Biden’s immediate presidential predecessor.

The Biden team is making a hash out of this story, giving their foes ammunition to fire at him. They are attempting to attach moral equivalence to the men’s actions. They aren’t remotely similar, other than they represent the presence of classified documents in unsecure places.

The White House communications outfit has to get a handle on this matter, in a major hurry. Any further bumbling by the White House “commo team” only heightens the political peril that Biden faces.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com