Tag Archives: pandemic

medical news

We’re still talking about COVID, Mr. POTUS

(Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I feel the need to remind you, Mr. President, of something you said on Oct. 24, about two weeks before you got thumped in your re-election bid.

You said everyone talks about “COVID, COVID, COVID,” and that by Nov. 4, “no one will be talking about” the disease that continues to infect and kill Americans.

OK, Mr. President. It’s now Nov. 13 and we’re still talking about COVID. Why? Because your administration’s shameful inaction on combating the killer virus has resulted in yet another ghastly and deadly spike in infection and death.

Haven’t you read the papers, Mr. President? We’re breaking records every day! For God’s sake, dude, the infection you kept telling us is “under control” is anything but under control. It is stampeding through our population like a herd of bison.

Does it fail to register with you, Mr. President, that your staff has been infected? Or that members of your Secret Service detail have come down with the disease? Or that you, your wife and your youngest son all were infected by the disease?

We’re still talking about the disease, Mr. POTUS! We’re going to keep talking about the disease for far longer than any of us want to talk about it.

This ain’t a hoax, Mr. President. It’s real. It is deadly … and you, sir, are responsible for continuing misery.

national news

This drama will have a predictable ending

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Americans are witnessing an amazing dual-track drama being played out simultaneously by the winner and loser of the 2020 presidential campaign.

President-elect Joe Biden is proceeding as if everything’s hunky-dory with the result of the election. Indeed, it is in many of our minds. Biden has captured 279 electoral votes, enough to win the election; there will be more of them added to Biden’s total when the counting is completed. He has formed a coronavirus task force to begin working on possible solutions to the killer pandemic.

Biden meanwhile is looking at possible Cabinet appointees and other high-level staff positions in the White House.

Legal challenge? What legal challenge?

Meanwhile, Donald J. Trump is saying the election is “far from over.” He is mounting lawsuit upon lawsuit in courts across the land. He alleges the election was “stolen” from him by illegal voters. Proof? Evidence? There’s none to be found. Trump has failed to produce a shred of either. All he does is tweet out allegations with no basis in fact.

Adding to the chaos is that he fired Defense Secretary Mark Esper today, ending a lengthy feud that developed when Trump threatened to deploy active-duty military forces to put down protests of racial policy; Esper pushed back hard against that hare-brained and patently dangerous notion. Trump was enraged. Today he wacked the Pentagon boss. He’s gone.

I prefer to concentrate on the Biden approach to forming a new government. He is proceeding with all due diligence and care. He is getting his briefings on the pandemic and other national security issues. He knows how this goes. He’s been there before, having served for either productive years as VP in the Barack Obama administration.

This drama will end eventually. Trump will run out of legal challenges. Biden will continue apace to form a government. We’ll have a ceremony in Washington on Jan. 20. Biden will take the oath; whether Trump is present to witness it in person remains an open question … which, frankly, doesn’t concern me in the least.

Then the new president will go to work.

That’s how it is supposed to play out. Is this a great country, or what?

national news

Now … it’s time to look ahead

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Is it too early to start talking about the new government under the command of a new president?

Aww … what the hey! Let’s go for it!

I won’t yet refer to Joseph R. Biden Jr. as president-elect. I will await the outcome of whatever legal challenges that Donald Trump will mount. My sense is that they have no basis, that Biden will be elected in due course and will begin the transition into taking office as the nation’s 46th president.

Trump is seeking to challenge the outcome of a contest that has spilled over past Election Day. We have some votes still to count. Nevada remains “out there.” So does Pennsylvania, Georgia and North Carolina. Biden is within striking distance of the latter three. He could win them, cementing his apparent Electoral College victory.

My initial takeaway from what lies ahead is this: Joe Biden will benefit from a healthy popular vote majority that Donald Trump never had. Trump won the Electoral College in 2016, but lost the actual vote by nearly 3 million ballots. Biden is leading as of this moment by more than 3 million votes and that number is certain to climb.

This dual-track victory will give Biden some political capital he can spend. Trump didn’t have it, even though he acted as if he did when he took office in January 2017. What’s more, Biden is well-versed in the nuts and bolts of legislating whereas Trump never learned how to negotiate with federal legislators.

Biden campaigned to restore the “soul” of a nation ravaged by the chaos and confusion brought to the presidency by Donald Trump. I will await anxiously to see how that restoration will take place. We are, after all, being felled by a pandemic that has killed more than 230,000 of us, which tells me that Joe Biden will accept a heaping issue plate when he takes office next January.

One final thought …

I have resisted attaching the word “President” directly in front of Trump’s name. I make no apologies for that. I am looking forward to referencing the words and deeds of President Joe Biden.

national news

‘Fire Fauci?’ Really?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Donald Trump considers himself to be a serious man.

I consider him to be a buffoon, a blowhard and a know-nothing politician.

So, when he eggs on a rally crowd that starts yelling “Fire Fauci!” and then urges them to wait until “after the election,” I am convinced beyond a doubt that Trump is out of his vacuous mind.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infection disease expert, had the temerity to declare that the nation is in a poor position as it seeks to battle the coronavirus pandemic. Oh, and then he said Joe Biden is taking the right approach to fighting the disease, while Trump is taking the wrong tack.

The Trumpkins started the chant. Trump listened to them for a few moments, then urged them to wait until after the election … presuming he gets re-elected. Then he might cut Fauci loose.

I have been saying for some time now that Fauci needs the platform to tell us the truth about the coronavirus. I no longer listen to anything that flies out of Trump’s mouth. He doesn’t know whether to sh** or shine his shoes regarding the pandemic. Fauci, on the other hand, is the pre-eminent infectious disease expert on Earth.

Here we are. On the cusp of an election. Trump hasn’t offered us a clue on where he wants to lead us in a second presidential term. He has now resorted to taunting one of the world’s most serious men over his views on the mishandling of a disease that has killed more than 230,000 Americans.

Disgraceful.

national news

It’s almost over

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

In the spirit of Donald Trump’s reported plans to declare victory prematurely on Election Night if certain things happen, I want to declare victory of another sort.

We’re just two days out from the presidential election and I am proud to report that we got through it.

Trump has managed to wage the most miserable re-election campaign in anyone’s memory. I don’t believe it will work for him; I am cautiously optimistic — with emphasis on “cautiously” — that Joe Biden will win the election Tuesday and take his place as the 46th president of the United States.

We sought to endure the incumbent’s incessant lying, his innuendo, his invective and insults, his boorishness. I remain baffled that Trump continues to hang onto the supporters he has held for as long as he has been in office.

The COVID crisis is out of control; Trump hasn’t yet spelled out a plan for a second term; he downplays the seriousness of the crisis; Trump criticizes the pre-eminent infectious disease expert on the White House response task force; he has insulted the men and women who serve in the military; he kowtows to dictators; he lied to us about the pandemic when he broke at the start of the year.

In a normal political environment, Biden would be headed to a 40-state landslide. These aren’t normal times. Yet my hope springs eternal that enough Americans have had enough, have had their fill of Trump’s relentless anger that they’ll turn to someone who can feel their hurt, their angst and is unafraid and is willing to express it publicly.

Trump himself has defined and embodied the abnormality of this political climate. He ran for president in 2016 proclaiming to be a self-made business success. We have learned that was a lie. He said “I, alone” can fix the nation’s problems. We learned that to be a form of code that disguised a desire to become an authoritarian leader, rather than part of a political partnership with other branches of government.

Trump has ignored the best advice he could receive. He has relied on his gut. Trump’s gut has resulted in a presidency that has left a trail of wreckage. My hope is that Joe Biden’s team can clean it up.

Here we are, on the verge of the most consequential election perhaps in U.S. history.

I am glad I have maintained some semblance of sanity watching this drama unfold in real time. I am ready for it to end … and I am hoping for the dawn of a new era.

medical news, national news

Hey, Don Jr.: Shut … up!

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Donald J. Trump Jr. said what?

Let me see if I have this straight …

On a day when 1,000 Americans died from the coronavirus pandemic, Don Jr. told Laura Ingraham, a Fox News talking head, that pandemic deaths were “almost nothing.” Don’s dad, The Donald, has said pretty much the same thing, that we are “turning the corner” and that the pandemic “is under control.”

I’ve already implored Donald Sr. to keep his yapper closed, to leave the medical analysis to the scientists and assorted experts with whom he has surrounded himself. Dad ain’t listening to little ol’ me.

I don’t expect Junior to listen, either. However, I must pass along this bit of advice to the elder Know Nothing Son of the Know Nothing President:

Don Jr. … shut the f**k up!

medical news, national news

‘We can’t control the virus’

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Mark Meadows doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

He told CNN this weekend that “We can’t control” the pandemic that has killed 220,000 Americans and sickened millions more of us.

Really, Mr. White House Chief of Staff? We can’t control a virus that has been controlled quite effectively in nations all across the globe. Has he looked at what they have done in, say, Taiwan? Or Greece? Or Costa Rica? Those countries took the virus by the throat at the outset and have reported a fraction of the misery that has occurred in much of the rest of the world, including the United States.

Think of the idiocy that flew out of Meadows’s pie hole. We live in the nation with the world’s greatest researchers, the greatest medical technology, the most wherewithal to devote to fighting this disease. The White House chief of staff says we can’t control the virus?

What then does this say about the feel-good message that Donald J. Trump keeps offering. Doesn’t he say categorically that the pandemic is “under control”? Yep. He does. Oh, wait! The nation’s top politician doesn’t know what he’s talking about, either.

So here we are. We have an ignorant president saying we have a disease under control when we do not; we also have a White House chief of staff say we cannot gain control over a disease … when we damn well certainly could do so.

May we please banish this ignorance from the White House at the end of Election Day?

medical news, national news

Pandemic surrender?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Did I hear this correctly?

Did the White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, actually tell CNN’s Jake Tapper that the White House cannot “control” the pandemic that Donald Trump keeps saying is “under control”?

I’ll be dipped …

There can be zero doubt as to why Joe Biden is making the pandemic response — or non-response — from the White House his signature campaign topic as he seeks to defeat Donald Trump in eight days.

Biden is telling the nation that Trump has “quit” on Americans, that he is lying about having the pandemic under control. Trump keeps lying. Now we have the White House chief of staff, who should be Trump’s key adviser, essentially endorsing Biden’s allegation of Trump’s decision to quit, to surrender in the fight against the pandemic.

Simply astonishing.

Meanwhile, Americans continue to get sick, continue to die. Their families continue to worry about their loved ones’ fate and continue to mourn their deaths.

We hear now that the White House is saying it cannot do what Donald Trump has said it has done already.

Mixed message? Yeah! Do you think?

national news

Down the stretch they go!

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

As long as the media keep reporting on the “horse race” aspect of the 2020 presidential campaign, I suppose it’s fitting now to note that Joe Biden and Donald Trump are heading down the stretch.

Did anything change substantively from their second and final joint appearance? It appears, um … no!

Biden’s lead remains steady if not overwhelming. Trump is trying to find a new path to the 270 electoral votes he needs to win re-election. Biden is taking his talking points this week — get this — to Georgia! Biden thinks he has a chance to capture that Deep South bastion of Republican politics. Who knew?

I remain hopeful — but I am leery — that Biden can pull this off, that he can banish Trump from the White House and that he can restore our national “soul,” which was his initial campaign message when he jumped into this contest.

My hope cannot wipe away the memory of what happened in 2016. Hillary Clinton led Trump down the stretch, too. Then she — and the rest of us — got the surprise of our political lives when Trump cobbled together an electoral majority to win!

He ran four years ago as an outsider vowing to shake things up. Well, he has shaken things up, all right. Now he is the ultimate insider.

Oh, and we have that pandemic that he ignored and the economic revival he inherited has collapsed as a result.

Stay busy, Joe Biden. Your work ain’t done yet.

medical news

Trump speaks stupidly

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Forrest Gump had it right when he said, “Stupid is as stupid does.”

With that want to I delve into Donald J. Trump’s latest volley of stupid statements, this time involving one of the world’s premier epidemiologists, Dr. Anthony Fauci.

You see, we have the Liar in Chief calling Fauci’s work on the coronavirus pandemic a “disaster.” What’s more, he threw in an epithet hardly befitting anyone, let alone a president of the United States. He referred to Fauci as an “idiot.”

I am left with three thoughts.

One of them is how in the name of presidential statesmanship can Donald Trump refer to his handpicked science adviser on the pandemic as being a “disaster” to the White House pandemic response team. Trump selected this individual to serve on that team, tasking him with providing cold, hard scientific data. Trump promised to listen to the experts on the team. He lied about that, too!

The second thought is the use of the “idiot” term to refer to Fauci, an Ivy League-educated scientist and medical doctor who has served every president of both parties dating back to Ronald Wilson Reagan. He has been at the forefront of HIV/AIDS research, has led efforts to fight previous epidemics.

Dr. Fauci is as brilliant a doctor/scientist on matters of infection disease as anyone on Earth.

Yet he now is being scorned and vilified by a politician who cannot find his backside with both hands when it comes to discussing intelligently the complicated matters of science and epidemiology.

Finally, how in the world does Dr. Fauci continue to work for this moron? Fauci would be able to provide unfettered scientific advice and counsel to the nation without having to answer to Donald J. Trump, whose abject stupidity continues to marvel me.