Tag Archives: Joe Biden

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

International news

B’bye, ISIS goon

Another Islamic State terrorist has been removed from this good Earth, courtesy of the work of U.S. special forces … to which I say, “Well done, men.”

President Biden issued the following statement overnight:

“Last night at my direction, U.S. military forces in northwest Syria successfully undertook a counterterrorism operation to protect the American people and our Allies, and make the world a safer place,” Biden said in a statement.

“Thanks to the skill and bravery of our Armed Forces, we have taken off the battlefield Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi—the leader of ISIS. All Americans have returned safely from the operation,” Biden added.

What does this mean? Well, it doesn’t mean the destruction of ISIS. Just as we learned in May 2011 when our special forces killed al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, the death of one man doesn’t necessarily eradicate the terrorist organization he led. The same likely will be said of al-Qurayshi’s death.

But to be absolutely certain, these successful missions can degrade the terrorist groups, making them less capable of planning and executing dastardly deeds against innocent victims.

As we have seen, though, in these operations, our special forces are the best on Earth at what they do.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

State news

Hegar joins border fight

Give me a break, Glenn Hegar. The state’s chief bean counter has now entered the fight to “protect our border” against criminals and assorted bad actors.

Yep, that’s right. Glenn Hegar is seeking re-election as Texas comptroller of public accounts. So, what — and who — does the Republican incumbent target? President Biden, who he says has allowed the border to get out of control.

I saw Hegar’s TV ad for the first time this evening. I practically fell out of my chair!

Wait a second! Hegar’s office is responsible for telling the Legislature how much it has on hand to appropriate every odd-numbered year when lawmakers gather in legislative session.

He is the state’s top accountant, for cryin’ out loud! What is he doing now trying to inject himself into the border fight?

Let’s see, I think I know. Glenn Hegar has joined the GOP demagoguery brigade. I would laugh out loud … except that it just isn’t funny.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Cruz embarrasses me

(Photo by Samuel Corum/Getty Images)

Ted Cruz just continues to pi**me off. I mean, the guy just cannot say a single, solitary sentence without sticking both of his boots squarely into his pie hole.

The junior U.S. senator from Texas, a Republican (naturally), said that President Biden’s decision to look only for a black woman to nominate for the Supreme Court “insults” other black Americans and also insults the senator.

He just cannot fathom that Biden wants to put someone on the court who embodies a greater swath of the American public. So he has chosen to look for an African American woman to fill that slot.

Cruz’s response seems to presume that Biden won’t find a qualified candidate to sit on the nation’s highest court.

I am wondering, as are others of my ilk: Why didn’t Cruz feel “insulted” when Donald Trump made the same pledge after Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died. Didn’t the then-president say he would look for a woman to replace the iconic liberal justice?

Give me a break … Ted! Let the process play out and let the president make his decision. I am one of the senator’s constituents who wishes the junior GOP loudmouth would pipe down and stop pre-judging these matters.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

legal news

Here come the epithets

President Biden’s pledge to nominate a black woman to become the next Supreme Court associate justice has produced a highly predictable, and thoroughly reprehensible, round of criticism from those who suggest that Biden is implementing an “affirmative action” policy to fill this key judicial slot.

It’s all pure crap.

Justice Stephen Breyer is retiring soon from the court. President Biden has pledged to find a candidate with impeccable credentials, high ethical standards, legal brilliance and a record of sterling, stellar achievement.

That the individual he selects is an African American woman should be of little consequence with regard to the qualifications required of the next Supreme Court justice.

You can count me as one American patriot who believes the president will have no difficulty finding a supremely qualified candidate among the pool of individuals from whom he will choose.

As for the critics who will question whether the next SCOTUS nominee is smart enough or has the required experience, I also am certain they will be revealed as possessing a racial bias that has no place in determining the fitness of the person to be considered.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com