Tag Archives: Joe Biden

International news

Is war coming … really?

You might think I am nuttier than a Payday bar for what I am about to say, but I don’t care. I’m just thinking out loud about what might be occurring behind closed doors in the White House and the Kremlin.

My thought is this: Is it possible that President Biden is overstating the threat of war between Russia and Ukraine to purchase some more negotiating time with Vladimir Putin? Furthermore, would an agreement that Putin’s armed forces are “standing down” give the president a serious public-relations bump at a time when he needs it?

We all know that politicians try to play every angle at their disposal. I don’t doubt for a second that Joe Biden is capable of playing such an angle for his benefit.

I also believe the president when his White House flack machine tells us the crux of what he told Putin in that hour-long phone call on Saturday, that the United States is prepared to inflict immediate and lasting economic harm to Russia if Putin sends in the troops to invade Ukraine. I also have difficulty accepting that Vladimir Putin is willing to accept that damage as the price of a battlefield conquest.

OK, call me nuts. I’m a big boy and I can take it.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

economic news, International news, Joe Biden, medical news

Mr. POTUS, tell Putin …

Joe Biden doesn’t need little ol’ me to give him advice as he talks to Vlad Putin, but I will offer it anyway and will make sure I send it to the appropriate place where someone on his staff might see it.

Mr. President, you need to remind Putin — as if he needs reminding — that he presides over a country with a third-rate economy. It is not a First World economic system. It is Third World at best, relying on oil and natural gas to keep it fueled.

Tell your colleague, Mr. President, that economic sanctions of the type we are able to level on Russia will bring great pain to himself and to the people he governs. We can cut off the oil and natural gas shipments to western Europe, which you have threatened to do if he invades Ukraine. We can freeze Russian monetary assets in banks in this country and we can persuade our NATO allies to do the same.

Also, the president ought to remind Putin of the terrible military cost his armed forces will suffer if they take on Ukrainian forces. Ukraine is not defenseless against the Russians. The Russians can win a ground war if they launch a full-scale invasion, but it will come at considerable cost.

And if Putin is interested in gathering up what’s left of Ukraine and annexing it into the Russian federation, he will do inherit a population that hates his ever-lovin’ guts.

The cost of an invasion — no matter its scale — is too great for the Russians to bear. Putin knows this. He just needs a not-so-gentle reminder from the leader of the world’s remaining military superpower.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

International news, military news

Biden needs an RFK

Who functions in the Joe Biden administration as the tough guy in international negotiations? Who can President Biden rely on to get the message delivered in clear and unambiguous terms that the United States means business when it threatens the other side with severe punishment if talks break down?

I refer to someone such as Robert F. Kennedy, who filled that role for his brother, President John F. Kennedy, during the October 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.

The situation today isn’t precisely identical, but to my eyes and ears it reminds me a bit of what transpired in 1962. Russian troops are massing on the Russian border with Ukraine. Russian thug Vladimir Putin is threatening to invade Ukraine if certain conditions are not met. President Biden is trying to talk Putin off the proverbial ledge.

In October 1962, the Soviet Union began assembling missile sites in Cuba. JFK got wind of it and set out to talk Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev out of deploying the missiles that could hit U.S. cities. He ordered a blockade of Cuba, using U.S. Navy ships to turn back any vessels heading for Cuban ports. He then dispatched his brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, to negotiate with the USSR envoys at the United Nations.

RFK laid down the law: either dismantle the missile sites or face the mighty wrath of American military might. The Soviets backed down. We gave them some concessions, to be sure, such as taking down our own missile sites in Turkey. The point is that JFK had RFK to do his dirty work.

Is there someone in the Biden administration to fill that task now? Man, I hope so.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Joe Biden, local news, national news

POTUS is up to the job

I am running out of ways to say what I believe in the deepest regions of my gut, which is that those who suggest that President Biden doesn’t have what it takes to do the job just aren’t paying attention, they aren’t listening to his words or watching how he interacts with other heads of state and political leaders here at home.

And yet …

I keep hearing from some of my own critics that Biden has lost a step. That he needs what Congressman Ronny Jackson of Amarillo keeps insisting is a “cognitive test.” That he lacks the mental acuity to figure out the myriad problems that plague the nation.

Good grief! Give me a fu**ing break!

The president is sharp enough to do the job. He remains engaged in the political process. He continues to remind us that he’s on top of matters. And, yes, the man can string sentences together and can communicate in a way that makes sense … at least he does to me.

Now, to be sure I have been accused myself of being a little slow on the uptake. One critic recently said I am “naive” to think that the inflated cost of goods and services are dragging down the president’s poll numbers; he said many factors have contributed to Biden’s polling decline, that he cannot do the job.

Please. Stop this nonsense.

Is the president a flawless orator? Do the words flow like fast-moving stream from his mouth? No. They don’t. Remember this about Joseph R. Biden Jr.: He grew up fighting a debilitating stutter. He conquered it through tough persistence and patience. Anyone who has suffered through such a challenge can relapse on occasion.

Believe me when I say such a thing, because I know how that happens; it happens to me on occasion. I, too, suffered through some speech issues as a boy. I can get rattled when speaking in public. When that happens, the words at times do not flow freely.

Is the president of the United States immune from the occasional lapse? Of course not!

And if we’re going to compare how this president communicates with, say, his immediate predecessor, I encourage anyone to read the text of Biden’s unrehearsed comments and compare them with what rolls out of Donald Trump’s mouth.

President Joe Biden has all the snap he needs to do the job to which he was elected.

Case closed.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news

Doc issues phony diagnoses

(AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

I want to make one more — but certainly not my final — observation about the idiot who represents the Texas Panhandle in the U.S. Congress. Ready? Here goes …

Republican Ronny Jackson is a trained medical doctor who once served as physician to three U.S. presidents: George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump.

As a physician, he should know the limits of his knowledge and whether he is capable of diagnosing individuals from the cheap seats. Thus, he is in no position or has any medical or ethical authority to suggest that President Biden needs a “cognitive exam” or that he is “unfit” to serve in office because he lacks the medical snap required.

Jackson has not examined the president. He has not seen Joe Biden’s medical charts. I feel confident in proclaiming that he has no fu**ing clue about the president’s mental acuity.

Therefore, Ronny Jackson — not Joe Biden — is the one who is unfit for the office he occupies representing the 13th Congressional District of Texas. I say that because he has violated — in my view — a basic tenet of medicine, which is that he is speaking way out of turn on something of which he has no direct knowledge.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

economic news, medical news

POTUSes can’t always control inflation

Presidents never deserve all the credit they take for economic growth, nor do they deserve all the blame for when economic conditions head south. Thus, Joe Biden doesn’t deserve to be pilloried for the inflation that is ravaging our economy; for that matter, neither did Donald Trump deserve it when he was in office.

President Biden’s poll numbers continue to sag partly — or perhaps largely — because of inflationary pressure being felt in millions of American homes. Sure, there are other factors contributing to Biden’s falling poll numbers.

How can a president control some issues, such as the “supply chain” matter that has affected the economy in light of the coronavirus pandemic? I have no answer to that one, but it doesn’t seem to matter to Americans who today are blaming Joe Biden for all the fiscal ailments they are feeling.

I want to be clear: I have been highly critical of Donald Trump’s initial response to the pandemic, but my criticism of the former president had nothing to do with the economic pressure that mounted prior to the 2020 presidential election. Therefore, while presidents can take some credit for economic success and must accept some blame for economic failure, some matters are beyond even their control.

President Biden promises that inflation will relent by the end of this year. I hope he is right … although I do wonder if he has the power to make such a pledge.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news

Astonishing turn in one congressional district

Ladies and gentlemen, we are witnessing an astonishing and frightening turnaround in at least one Texas congressional district, which happens to be one district I know quite well, given that I lived in it for 23 years before moving southeast to Collin County.

It is the constant haranguing of the commander in chief by a member of the House Armed Services Committee, who happens to represent the 13th Congressional District of Texas. Ronny Jackson, the former White House doctor and one-time Navy admiral, cannot stop berating President Biden via Twitter and the Fox (Propaganda) Network.

The turnaround involves the quality of representation that befell residents of that district and the dignity the district residents used to witness from Jackson’s predecessor in Congress, fellow Republican Mac Thornberry.

Jackson is a loudmouth wacko who cannot stop suggesting from afar that President Biden lacks the snap to perform the duties of the office to which voters elected him. He keeps yammering via Twitter and on Fox about the need for Biden to take a cognitive test. What the hell for … doc? He’s just as sharp as you are!

Thornberry, a man with whom I had plenty of differences, wouldn’t dare take to the Twitter-verse to stage the non-stop harangues we keep seeing from his dipsh** successor. Jackson won’t stop.

We’re represented in Collin County by a GOP House member. Van Taylor is as conservative as Jackson, but he doesn’t resort to the constant barrage of epithets via Twitter to make his point. Indeed, Taylor actually reaches across the aisle to work with Democrats when issues present themselves. Does the former doctor now representing the Panhandle do any of that, or is he just too damn busy seeking ways to undermine the commander in chief?

Ronny Jackson simply just pisses me off. The dude is a disgrace.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news, political news

Wanting to put the past … in the past

Almost nothing in this good old world would please me more than to put the past in the past, that we would just stop talking about the 2020 election, the one in which Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump.

If only we could put the past behind us.

The problem is that Trump keeps repeating The Big Lie. He keeps telling us the election was “stolen” from him. That Biden won only because dead people cast ballots and that elections officials in many key states were so corrupt that they manipulated ballots to create a Biden victory.

None of that happened! Hence, we have The Big Lie!

Why doesn’t Trump let the issue just wither away and die? Because he can’t. He won’t. He refuses to accept that he lost the election.

So, The Big Lies lives on. We keep talking about it. I don’t want to talk about it. I want to talk about the future. I want to look ahead.

I want Donald Trump to disappear. I want him to vanish behind the gilded gates at Mar-a-Lago, never to be heard from or seen again.

Go … away … Donald!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

State news

Watch for phony heroics among GOP candidates

Clearly it has become open season on the Joe Biden administration among Texas Republican candidates for public office. They all seem intent on positioning themselves as the polar opposites of the Democratic president … even if the office they seek has little to do with anything related to federal policy.

The Texas comptroller of public accounts provides an interesting example of what I am talking about.

The GOP incumbent Glenn Hegar is running a TV ad in which he declares that he is going to fight the Biden administration over protecting our southern border. How is he going to do that?

Hegar’s ad proclaims that he spent $3 billion on border security. I was wondering about an issue related to that bit of braggadocio: Does the comptroller have the discretionary authority to just send $3 billion in that manner, or must he do what the Legislature and the governor tell him to do?

I asked someone who covers state government extensively about that matter. He responded that government agencies have limited authority in some cases to exercise discretion in spending money, but the border money to which Hegar referred isn’t one of them. I have posed the question to the public information officer for the comptroller’s office and haven’t heard back from him.

I am left to wonder whether Hegar is misrepresenting his authority on that border security issue so he can muster up some anti-President Biden anger among Republican primary voters.

I will report back to you the response I get from the comptroller’s media flack.

Meantime, I’ll leave it to you to decide whether the state’s top bean counter — Glenn Hegar — might be, um, overstating his role in “keeping Texans safe from illegal immigrants.”

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

 

national news

Vote theft = profound irony

The irony of what we are learning through dribs and drabs of Donald John Trump’s culpability in the 1/6 insurrection is just too profound to ignore.

What have we learned? That Trump actually sought to “overturn” the results of the 2020 presidential election, according to his own words. That he pressured Vice President Mike Pence to disallow Electoral College votes that went to Joe Biden while Pence was presiding over the electoral vote certification on 1/6. That he allegedly met with White House staff prior to the riot to plot how he could “legally” call for the seizure of voting machines.

The best part is that we have a clear recording of Trump demanding that Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensberger, “find” 11,780 votes to swing the state from Biden’s corner to Trump’s. Voter theft? There it is!

And now think of this: Donald Trump’s Big Lie, that the 2020 election was “stolen” from him was being played out in real time by the then-president’s own effort to steal the election from the Biden, who won it fairly, squarely and legally.

Voter fraud? Vote theft? Trump alleges falsely that President Joe Biden’s team stole the election, all the while conspiring to do the same thing himself!

Wow, man!

The House 1/6 select committee is ramping up its probe into what occurred on that horrifying day. It is summoning key White House aides, including at least one member of Trump’s family — elder daughter Ivanka — to testify to what they knew and when they knew it. My creaky old bones are telling me that there could be some criminal indictments hurled by the committee in due course.

If so, then no one should be exempt. I shall repeat: No one should be exempt from the quest for the truth. That would include the man who masqueraded for four years as our head of state and commander in chief … the guy who sought to pilfer the election from the guy who won it honestly.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com