Tag Archives: pandemic

national news

Can we vote yet?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I guess  you could say I have come full circle on this early-voting matter.

There once was a day when I would resist casting my ballot early, fearing that my candidate(s) would do something stupid or possibly illegal between the time I cast my vote and Election Day.

Those days have been plowed asunder over concerns about the coronavirus pandemic. I now am anxious to vote and to vote early.

Texans can begin voting next Tuesday. My wife and I will venture to First Baptist Church in Princeton to cast our ballots. My hope now is simply to cast my vote and to ensure that it is recorded properly in the Collin County election system, which is as high-tech an apparatus as you’ll see anywhere.

Am I concerned about voting in person? Yes, but only a little. We voted at the church in this year’s primary and we were impressed with the care the poll workers took to ensure we were masked up, that kept appropriate “social distance” and that we didn’t touch anything that didn’t relate directly to the act of voting. Through it all the poll workers were spraying every surface they could find with disinfectant.

We are going to have our voices heard no matter what. I guess my preference would have been to vote by mail. We have chosen instead to troop down the street for just a few minutes to vote in person.

We have heard the message from Joe Biden and others who back him: Vote early, either in person or by mail … just be sure to vote.

medical news

Trump 24, Biden 0

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I cannot get past a sobering statistic.

Donald Trump’s senior team of policy advisers and campaign operatives is dropping like flies to the COVID-19 virus.

To date, 24 of them have tested positive for the killer bug. They include none other than Donald Trump his own self.

How come? Because Trump doesn’t listen to the advice he gets from the experts with whom he has surrounded himself. He doesn’t like masks; he won’t maintain social distance; his policy gurus follow the Old Man’s lead.

Over on Biden’s side, the infection count among senior Biden policy aides and campaign staffers is, um … zero!

No one has been publicly identified as testing positive for the virus. Hmm. Why is that? Oh, wait! It’s because Joe Biden does follow the advice of medical experts. He wears a mask. He practices social distancing. He forgoes big campaign rallies with thousands of cheering Bidenistas.

Trump 24, Biden 0.

national news

Mr. VPOTUS? Answer this one

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Vice-presidential political debates always should be deemed critical to a campaign, given that the principals involved are vying to be next in line to the presidency of the United States.

Tonight’s encounter with Sen. Kamala Harris and Vice President Mike Pence has taken on new urgency. I’ll state the obvious reason first: the age of the president and his Democratic Party challenger.

Donald Trump is 74; former VP Joe Biden is 77. I am not being ghoulish in determining that the age of the presidential candidates is a critical part of the VP debate. We need to assess whether either Sen. Harris or VP Pence is ready to become president at a moment’s notice.

We also have this COVID-19 matter. Perhaps you’ve heard, but Donald Trump is infected with a potentially fatal virus. He spent three days in the hospital. He returned to the White House and is continuing to pose an immediate threat to those around him by, um, refusing to wear a mask or observe “social distancing.”

This brings me to an essential question that Harris — or perhaps moderator Susan Page — needs to pose to Pence.

The VP heads the White House coronavirus response task force. Pence needs to answer this question: If you are seeking to stay in office, how is it that you not only have failed to protect Americans — more than 200,000 of whom have died from this disease — but you also failed to protect the president of the United States? 

A host of related questions can arise from that. Why haven’t you insisted at Donald Trump observe medical experts’ warnings? Are you leading by example? Is the task force performing a worthwhile function if POTUS is ignoring your advice? How can you defend the president’s conduct when he jeopardizes the health of those around him?

I believe Pence’s record as head of the response task force needs careful examination in tonight’s encounter.

national news

POTUS affirms decision to ignore him

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I have long held to my assertion that Donald Trump’s words aren’t worth heeding.

He has shown just today that my belief holds water, that Donald Trump isn’t to be heeded on anything.

Trump has contradicted medical experts regarding COVID-19. He mocked Joe Biden for wearing a mask, then came down with the virus. He went home after just 70 hours at Walter Reed Medical Center and I believe he is spreading the disease as we sit here within the White House.

Then he fired off an astonishing Twitter message that ended White House negotiation with congressional Democrats over a possible coronavirus relief package until after the Nov. 3 election.

There you have it. This man is nuts. Donald Trump cannot be trusted to tell the truth; he cannot speak rationally or reasonably. Trump is out of his mind.

It might be the meds he is taking to combat the COVID-19 virus that has infected him. Trump reportedly is taking steroids, which might have affected his judgment.

Be that as it is, I will continue to ignore anything that flies out of Donald Trump’s pie hole.

national news

Trump: No. 1 threat

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Donald Trump simply couldn’t settle for just being a national security threat by virtue of his behavior regarding the Russians and North Koreans.

Oh, no. He had to become infected with a potentially fatal virus and then flout medical experts’ guidelines and rules about how to conduct himself. He has become a one-man “super spreader” of the disease that is afflicting more than a dozen of his key White House advisers, members of the U.S. Senate, top officers among his military command staff.

Trump returned to the White House on Monday, shucked the mask he was told to wear, stood and offered a stiff salute while gasping for breath, then went into the White House to mingle with staffers and employees. Did he observe “social distancing”? Hah! Not even …

Now he wants to take part in a presidential encounter with the man who appears poised to defeat him Nov. 3, Joe Biden. That will occur on Oct. 15. Maybe!

I am not at all sure it ought to happen, with Biden and Trump standing/sitting on the same stage. Perhaps they could do a “virtual” confrontation, with the adversaries sitting in their own environments. Whatever.

I am simply flabbergasted that Trump continues to offer the happy talk that he “we have done a tremendous job,” that the virus is “under control,” that it will “disappear like a miracle.”

Let me be crystal clear. Donald Trump is not cured of anything. He continues to expose those around him to a potentially fatal disease. He came out of Walter Reed Medical Center prematurely. I do not believe the White House medical staff that expressed “support” for Trump’s decision to leave the hospital; I was struck by the absence of the word “approve” when discussing the decision to exit the medical center.

Trump is a menace. He said he would listen to the medical experts, but hasn’t exhibited any sort of wisdom in heeding his own advice. He is threatening our national security by ignoring the recommendations provided by the medical experts all around him.

He isn’t making America great with his reckless, feckless behavior.

medical news, national news

Quite the scene, Mr. POTUS

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Well now, that was quite the entrance that Donald J. Trump made last night as he strolled off Marine One and walked into the White House.

He had just been discharged from Walter Reed Medical Center where he had been treated for the COVID-19 virus. He walked into “my house,” came back to the flag-draped balcony and then — against the advice of the docs who treated him for the potentially killer virus — removed his mask and walked back into the White House to mingle with employees and assorted presidential supporters.

Words escape me at this moment.

We witnessed an astonishing display of arrogance from the man who then told us to “not let the virus dominate you.” What the f***?

A nation that has said farewell to more than 210,000 of its residents is now advised to avoid letting the virus get us down? The president needs to have his elaborately coiffed skull examined.

He wants to get back on the campaign trail. He wants to tangle with Democratic nominee Joe Biden in a race he is losing bigly. 

Trump said he gets it, He said he understands how the coronavirus must be treated. Really? Then someone needs to explain why he went through that disgraceful exhibition on the White House balcony.

I will be candid: He doesn’t get sh** about this virus and the danger it poses to Americans or about the grief it has brought to hundreds of thousands of families and friends of its victims.

Meanwhile, Joe Biden continues to observe all the advice handed out by the medical experts. And is it not lost on anyone that Biden’s team of advisers and policy aides has reported zero cases of COVID-19 infection — to date — while Trump’s team is dropping like flies?

I am astounded beyond measure that the president of the United States would care so little about those around him — not to mention the security of our nation — that he would flout the advice given him to stay safe against a disease that could kill him … along with those around him.

national news

Don’t sweat the COVID virus? Huh?

3 Comments

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Donald J. Trump is back in the White House after spending about 70 hours at Walter Reed Medical Center.

He is infected with the coronavirus, the one that’s killing Americans every single day.

His response to the virus? Don’t worry about it, he said upon departing the hospital for the residence at the White House. Don’t worry? Is this man nuts? Don’t answer that. I know what you would say … and I would agree.

Donald Trump will never get it. That much is now as clear as it gets.

He doesn’t harbor an ounce of empathy for those who have lost loved ones to the dreaded virus. Trump doesn’t understand what it means to suffer such grievous loss, which is a tough thing to say about a man whose brother died of alcohol abuse. Still, he says things about not worrying about the coronavirus without grasping how those words fall on the ears of those who are mourning the loss of a loved one who has died from it.

I have said before and I’ll say it again that I am hoping that Trump recovers fully from the disease. I want him to stand for re-election on Nov. 3. I also want him to lose bigly. I want Joe Biden to be elected president.

Why? Donald Trump’s behavior while being holed up at Walter Reed and his comments upon leaving it tell me he cannot lead the nation in this dark pandemic era.

What’s more, I haven’t even mentioned until right now how he shucked the mask upon entering the White House.

Donald Trump needs to go.

medical news

Way to ‘lead,’ Mr. POTUS

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Wait just a doggone, cotton-pickin’ minute.

Donald Trump is hospitalized with a highly infectious, potentially fatal virus — which has kept millions of Americans away from their loved ones as they struggle though isolation — and he does … what?

He piles into an airtight armored vehicle with Secret Service agents and takes a joyride around the hospital to wave at supporters. Then he goes back to his room at Walter Reed Medical Center as if to say “No harm, no foul.”

What the f***?

This happened today. Trump is supposed to be in isolation. He is supposed to be kept away from other human beings. Trump is supposed to be recovering quietly in his hospital room from a virus that could kill him.

But … no-o-o-o! This guy has to put on a show for his supporters. To what end? That he’s tougher than your average COVID-19 patient?

How do you suppose that is going to play with the loved ones of COVID-19 patients who have died from the disease? How might those who had to stay away while Mom, Dad, Grandma, Grandpa, husband, wife, brother and sister, children all passed without being near those who love them the most respond to Donald Trump’s show?

This display accomplished not a single constructive thing. Indeed, Donald Trump well might have exposed Secret Service agents riding with him in that hermetically sealed vehicle to the coronavirus that is supposed to keep Trump in isolation.

This is not how you “lead by example.” It is the antithesis of it. Donald Trump said he would now take the coronavirus more seriously than he has until now. Really? This is how he shows it?

Absolutely disgraceful!

medical news

Tell the truth, already!

(Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

The dissembling, prevarication, obfuscation and outright lying just doesn’t stop within the White House even when it involves the health of the president of the United States.

Donald Trump’s recovery from the COVID-19 virus is being turned into a carnival of half-truths and outright fiction. Holy crap, man! We’re dealing here with the head of state, our commander in chief, the guy with the nuclear launch codes.

It’s bad enough that all of that happens to reside in the body of Donald John Trump. Now, though, we are faced with not knowing whether the president is truly on the road back to recovery or whether he could take a turn for the worse.

This back/forth about whether Trump received oxygen upon being admitted to Walter Reed Medical Center is a case in point. I get that hooking a 74-year-old male hospital patient up to an oxygen tank is a fairly normal procedure. Why not just say so? Why dance around the issue as if reporters are asking the docs to give us a live-or-die prognosis?

I probably shouldn’t be surprised at any of this. Donald Trump long ago assumed the title of Liar in Chief, even though he is a terrible liar. The lack of truth-telling has filtered through the ranks, even through the medical staff that should be immune (no pun intended) from such an affliction.

I want the president and first lady to recover from this illness. In the meantime, I also want to know the full truth in real time about what is happening to the leader of our country.

Tell us the truth!

medical news

Chaos reigns in COVID response

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

If there is an issue that demands continuity in a government response it must include the health and well-being of our head of state and commander in chief.

Are we getting now from the White House as Donald Trump and his wife, Melania, battle the coronavirus? Hardly.

We are getting more of the chaotic mixed messaging that has afflicted the White House since, oh, when Trump became president.

Donald Trump is a patient at Walter Reed Medical Center. The doctors tell us that Trump’s condition is progressing; then we hear from others close to the situation that Trump’s vital signs are “worrisome” and that the next 48 hours will be critical.

Which is it?

Americans cannot get a clear reading of whether the doctors administered oxygen to Trump. White House doctors tell us that he doesn’t have oxygen “right now,” or “today.” No mention of whether he ever has received it.

We don’t know when Trump might have tested positive for the virus and whether he continued his activities for another full day after getting the diagnosis.

So many questions. The White House seems unable or unwilling to deliver a clear, unambiguous message. What’s at stake? The health of the president. Not only that, we have our national security apparatus in potential jeopardy when the public does not have a clear understanding of the president’s health.

Donald Trump, lest we forget, happens to be part of a major at-risk group: elderly, overweight males are among those most vulnerable to serious symptoms if they test positive for the COVID-19 virus.

Therefore, we need a crystal clear message that tells us the whole truth about the physical condition of president.

Stop the chaos!