Tag Archives: Joe Biden

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

legal news

Waiting for return of confirmation comity

There once was a time when U.S. Supreme Court nominees sailed blissfully through the confirmation process, with senators giving presidents all the latitude in the world to select the person of their choice. They asked some tough questions, occasionally, but were respectful and a bit deferential to presidential prerogative.

Not … any … longer.

President Biden is going to select a black woman to succeed Stephen Breyer on the court once Breyer retires at the end of the current court term. The president can expect a donnybrook. He might be able to find the most brilliant legal mind this side of the Magna Carta, but that person won’t be confirmed without shedding a good bit of blood as she takes incoming rounds from the Republican obstruction brigade in the Senate.

When did it come to this? I guess you could trace it to 1987, when President Reagan nominated Robert Bork to the SCOTUS. Bork was known to be a strict constitutional constructionist. He was a brilliant legal scholar, but he had some seriously offensive views about the role of women and racial minorities. His nomination went down in flames.

Then came the 1991 nomination of Clarence Thomas, whom President George H.W. Bush called the most brilliant legal mind in America. He sought to succeed the late Thurgood Marshall. Then came allegations of sexual harassment and the testimony of Anita Hill. The debate was ferocious. The Senate confirmed Thomas, but it was a narrow mostly partisan vote.

I am thinking at this moment of a nominee put forth by President Eisenhower in 1953. Earl Warren was governor of California when Ike asked him to join the court. He had never served as a judge. I wonder now how an Earl Warren nomination would fare in today’s climate. Would senators question his qualifications? Would they hold him to the same sort of careful examination that they appear ready to do to whomever Joe Biden presents? If the answer is yes, would Gov. Warren hold up?

For the record, I am glad Earl Warren served as chief justice, given that the court on his watch approved some amazing landmark rulings; e.g., Brown v. Board of Education.

I want President Biden’s first high court nominee to be judged carefully but fairly by senators. I am concerned they will respond with red herrings, specious arguments and phony concerns.

I remain committed, by the way, to presidential prerogative in these cases. Elections, as they say, do have consequences. I have been faithful to that truism with respect to whomever is in office.

So, let the process move forward. I hope for a semblance of judicial comity as the Senate ponders this most important selection.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

economic news

Morning in America dawns again

Ronald W. Reagan campaigned for re-election in 1984 as president on the theme that it was “morning in America.” By golly, it worked as President Reagan steamrolled to a smashing landslide victory, winning 49 states and rolling up an Electoral College margin of 525 to 13.

Well, guess what, ladies and gentlemen. I believe it’s “morning in America” is dawning yet again in the good ol’ U.S. of A.

Economic reports show that the Gross Domestic Product grew at a rate not seen since 1984. Unemployment is now down to 3.9%, which is about where it was prior to the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. More jobs have been added to non-farm payrolls at any time in the first year of a presidency, which is something that Joe Biden has been proclaiming for a good while.

What does this mean for the president? It means he has some grist on which to build a campaign in advance of this year’s midterm election, which will be a setup for the 2024 presidential campaign.

I am aware of the hurdles that remain. We need to rein in inflation; the Federal Reserve Board is poised to do that by increasing interest rates this year. There are some foreign-policy issues with which to deal, such as Russia and Ukraine, China’s bellicosity and threats against Taiwan, the ongoing Middle East tensions. Of course, we also have climate change … and the pandemic.

Economically, it is morning once again across the land.

The president needs to be careful to avoid hogging more credit than he deserves. I have noted for longer than I can remember that POTUSes don’t deserve all the blame nor do they deserve all the credit for swings in the economy.

The good and the bad, though, occur on their watch. Thus, they become the hero or the zero, depending on which way the economy is tracking.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

legal news

Hey, Gipper said so first!

President Biden pledged once again today to make an unprecedented appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court. He will find an African American woman to nominate to the court to succeed Justice Stephen Breyer.

OK. That’s unprecedented. I get it. However, he ain’t the first president or candidate for POTUS to make a pledge to find someone of a particular gender to the court.

Ronald Reagan did so while running for the presidency in 1980. He said a few weeks before that election he would nominate the first woman to the court. He won big that year. And in 1981 President Reagan made good on the promise by nominating Sandra Day O’Connor to the Supreme Court.

We’re good so far, right?

Conservatives then hailed the choice.

Their reaction to President Biden’s pledge? Why, he’s slamming the door shut on qualified judges; they say he is launching an affirmative action program to the court selection process; we can’t allow the president to pick someone who might not pass judicial muster, as if the person’s racial background by itself is an impediment.

The duplicity is stunning.

I am going to hold onto every confidence on God’s good Earth that President Biden is going to find a top-drawer, first-rate, learned jurist … who just happens to be an African American woman to serve on the nation’s highest court.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Awaiting SCOTUS debate

I am waiting with bated breath — yes, already! — for Senate Republicans to voice their opposition to whomever President Biden chooses to succeed Justice Stephen Breyer on the U.S. Supreme Court.

You see, we now will get to hear the objections as to why they oppose what the president promises will be a legal scholar of impeccable credentials; she will be someone with outstanding character; she will have unassailable legal credentials.

That won’t be enough to swing GOP senators over the right side of history as Joe Biden proceeds to find the first African American woman nominated for a spot on the nation’s highest court. Oh, no!

They will concoct reasons to oppose her. They will take whatever she might have said about something out of context, twist it into something no one can recognize and then declare that there is “no way” they can support such a “radical, left-leaning” lawyer to the Supreme Court.

I actually welcome that debate. Why? Because I want to know who the individuals are who cannot set their political bias aside while considering such an important choice for a lifetime appointment.

Oh, and be sure to stay alert to the accusation that Democrats in Congress and the president are somehow playing “politics” with this choice. Wait for it. That ridiculous canard is bound to surface.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

legal news

Breyer to retire … who will join SCOTUS?

Stephen Breyer today made official what the world has known for, oh, the past 24 hours, that he is retiring from the U.S. Supreme Court at the end of the court’s term.

Now comes yet another stern test for President Biden: finding a nominee who will be seated quickly on the nation’s highest court.

The president has limited his field of choices dramatically by pledging to name an African American woman to succeed Justice Breyer. Allow me this bit of wisdom per the next nominee to join the court.

Of the names I have heard mentioned I am struck by the term “public defender” in the backgrounds of at least two prominent judges. The idea that a legal genius who has served as a public defender could join the nation’s highest appellate court is appealing in the extreme to me. One name appears to be the prohibitive favorite, as an article By Elaine Godfrey in The Atlantic has noted:

We know that his nominee will almost certainly be a woman. In 2020, then-candidate Biden vowed that he would respond to a Supreme Court opening by nominating a Black woman. Dozens of candidates are being talked about, but nearly all of the Court watchers I interviewed for this story have their money on one in particular: Ketanji Brown Jackson.

Biden’s Likeliest Replacement for Justice Breyer: Ketanji Brown Jackson – The Atlantic

I believe someone with public defender experience in her legal background brings a totally new perspective to any judicial conference that would occur when the court is considering, for example, an appeal on a death penalty case; or perhaps an appeal on a conviction that someone believes was incorrectly achieved.

Could a Supreme Court associate justice soften the hard hearts of her colleagues? It’s possible. Then again, it might not. My point though is that a U.S. Supreme Court need not be populated only with jurists who come from, say, civil law or who have experience only as criminal prosecutors.

President Biden seemingly wants to broaden the scope of the Supreme Court’s world view. Go for it, Mr. President.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Why fight this pick?

My idea of political perfection might lie in the way the president of the U.S. and the U.S. Senate conduct themselves as we seek to find a justice to the nation’s highest court.

Justice Stephen Breyer has announced his intention to retire from the Supreme Court at the end of the current court term. President Biden then will get to select a nominee to succeed Breyer.

Biden’s pick won’t swing the ideological balance of the court; it will remain a 6-3 conservative panel.

That all said, it makes sense — to me, at least — that all Biden has to do is find a qualified jurist to take the seat once the Senate confirms her. Oh, yeah; I need to mention that the president has pledged to select an African American woman to succeed Breyer.

It should be a slam dunk, right? A 100-0 vote to confirm, presuming the justice-designate is qualified and has earned the necessary chops to take a seat on the highest court in America.

It ain’t likely to work that way. We hear now from Sen. Lindsey Graham, the Republican from South Carolina who doubles as Donald Trump’s suck-up boy in the Senate, saying Biden can get a nominee approved “without Republican support.” Does that mean the GOP caucus is going sit on its hands while fabricating reasons to oppose whomever Biden selects? Sounds like it to me.

Preposterous.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com