Tag Archives: Joe Biden

national news

Eve of destruction? Hardly!

I see these social media posts and I shake my noggin.

“Joe Biden is destroying the country,” they say. Oh really? How in the world can anyone presume that we’re being “destroyed” when we have endured what we went through for the past four years prior to Biden become president?

While we’re at it, how did the country survive the turmoil of the 1960s, with the Vietnam War raging and protesters lighting fires in our cities? Or when we suffered through political assassination, starting with the murder of a president, then with the gunning down of a preacher and civil-rights champion and then the brother of the president who well could have become POTUS on his own?

Or how about during the Second World War, or the Civil War?

Yeah, we’ve been through a lot in this country. We have been on the verge of destruction many times already. We have managed to come out on the other side. Perhaps a bit tattered, battered and bruised.

Joe Biden is “destroying the country” because he wants to invest in some social programs? Please … spare me the hyperbole.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

environmental news

POTUS reverses predecessor’s denial

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Joe Biden sees climate change as an existential threat to the nation and the world.

Donald Trump called it, among other things, a “hoax,” a figment of the “fake media” and its obsession with leftist policies.

Biden is correct. His predecessor is wrong. Biden was correct to return the United States to the Paris Climate Accord; Trump was wrong to pull us out the accords in 2017.

Which is why many of us are applauding President Biden’s decision to return to the climate change negotiating table and to hammer out potential solutions to what the scientific community has concluded: that humankind’s contribution to the changing world climate compels it to seek solutions.

Biden selected former Secretary of State John Kerry to serve as the administration’s spokesman on climate change issues. He brought Kerry with him to Glasgow to talk with other world leaders about the United States’ potential role in seeking answers to the crisis.

Indeed, Kerry is no novice at this level of international diplomacy. He served for four years as chief diplomat during the Obama administration. Prior to that he served in the U.S. Senate, ran for president in 2004 and distinguished himself as an articulate purveyor of national policy.

So, the United States is back in the climate change game.

That, I daresay, is a very good thing for the future of the planet. Or at least it could be a good thing if the industrialized world pulls its collective head out and gets busy seeking solutions.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

POTUS to Pope: God love ya

Leave it to President Biden to, um, offer an everyman’s salutation to one of the world’s most beloved religious leaders.

Biden has flown to Rome to meet with our economic allies as part of the G20 summit. He paid a call on Pope Francis I in the Vatican.

At the end of the meeting, the president of the United States — the second Catholic ever elected to our nation’s highest political office — told the Holy Father, “God love ya.”

I don’t know how His Holiness responded to it. I trust that he took it in stride. Hey, he’s God’s vicar on Earth. I am sure he has heard just about all there is to hear from God’s other fallible human creatures.

Nice going, Mr. President.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Unity? Far from it!

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President Biden might have been able to declare some form of victory today had any Republicans had taken part in the negotiation that produced a $1.75 trillion spending bill that appears headed for final approval in Congress.

Sadly, he cannot. Why? Because the Grumpy Obstructionist Party won’t take part in anything pitched by a Democratic president.

This kind of obstructionism simply enrages me, a self-proclaimed “good government progressive” blogger/pundit/cheap-seat occupier.

I want the GOP to take part in this government, which does involve them as well as Democrats. Instead, Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell and his House counterpart, Kevin McCarthy, have opted to dig in against the Democrats and the POTUS.

Good government is a team sport. That means, in my view, the whole team comprising members of both parties. Instead, we’re getting a government run by roughly half of the House and the Senate along with the guy who sits in the big office in the White House.

President Biden vowed, in a manner of speaking, to bridge the gap between the parties that grew to enormous size during the administration of Biden’s immediate predecessor. Indeed, the 45th POTUS had no interest or skill in bridging that gap. Biden, at least, brought considerable legislative experience to the White House.

He has yet to bridge the great divide. I hope he can get there.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

‘No’ on executive privilege

Imagine my (non)surprise at news that the Biden administration said “no way” to a request to grant executive privilege stipulations to his immediate predecessor.

POTUS No. 45 asked No. 46’s administration to grant those privileges as the House select committee summons key aides to 45 to testify on what they knew about the events of 1/6.

President Biden’s team said “no way” to the request. Biden said in a statement that the nation needs to know the whole truth behind what happened on the day Donald Trump incited the riot that sought to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election … which Biden won!

There’s no argument here as to what the House panel seeks. It wants all the information it get obtain. My sense is that the best place to look is into the records of those who worked most closely with the former Insurrectionist in Chief.

Go for it, House select committee!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

State news

This is ‘pro-business’?

How in the name of sound policy does a “conservative” Republican governor who touts his state’s “business-friendly” climate issue an executive order that demands private businesses refrain from issuing mandates that could save the lives of employees and customers?

That is what Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has done in his ongoing fight to defy President Biden’s effort to get businesses and government agencies to do their part to rid the nation and the world of the COVID-19 virus.

So help me, I don’t get it. Then again, there are a lot of things about GOP governing strategy that go beyond my ability to understand. This is just one of them.

Abbott issued an executive order that prohibits private business owners from taking steps that could prevent the spread of a killer virus. Where I come from, I call that “government intrusion.” Oh sure, Abbott and his minions say that Biden and his supporters are intruding into private business affairs through their vaccine and mask mandates. I am going to side with the president on this one. Big surprise … huh?

Gov. Abbott’s order actually is inviting businesses to join him in defying a national effort aimed at protecting us against the virus. Let’s see, the virus has killed more than 700,000 Americans already. Right? So the president wants to incentivize Americans into getting vaccinated and to take measures to protect themselves — and others — against a deadly infection.

Gov. Greg Abbott has just tossed the state’s pro-business playbook into the crapper. Good luck trying to retrieve it.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Is our grumpiness terminal?

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The thought just occurred to me.

Could it be that we have entered a period of terminal grumpiness, that our dissatisfaction with government is a carryover that cannot be shaken loose no matter how well our politicians are functioning in the moment?

I see that President Biden’s job approval rating stands at just a bit north of 43%. It’s about 9 points less than his disapproval rating.

Voters’ opinion of Congress is worse than that. We are feeling testy toward the speaker of the House, the minority leader of the House, both party leaders in the Senate.

What’s going on? We well might be turning the corner on the pandemic; we’re still adding jobs to an economy battered by the disease, albeit at a too-slow rate; joblessness is down. Yes, we have immigration issues that need to be resolved. Our lawmakers cannot get our nation’s budgeting process figured out.

But damn! I just get this nagging notion that public opinion polling suggests a restiveness that might be carrying over from years past, or from months past.

I don’t see data that examines what is driving Americans’ distrust in government. I hear plenty of anecdotal stuff stemming from the previous administration’s tenure, about how the ex-POTUS was constantly railing against the “deep state” and those who collected all that power. Voters bought into a lot of what he was saying. I wasn’t one of them. My faith in government remains quite strong as does my belief that government can — and eventually will — right itself.

I don’t want there to be a state of terminal anger. There are too many good things waiting to occur. At least that’s my hope.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Yes, but he still lost!

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Those who adhere to the cult beliefs of the 45th president of the United States keep telling us that the will and wishes of “74 million American voters” should not be ignored.

OK. I get that. More than 74 million voters cast their ballots for the guy who finished second in the race for the presidency in 2020. That is the second-greatest vote total ever recorded; the greatest vote total was rolled up by President Biden, who pulled in more than 81 ballots.

And, yes, they were legitimately cast ballots.

So, to the sore losers who cannot accept that their guy finished second in a two-man for the presidency in 2020 I say only: Get the fu** over it!

They won’t. Not as long as their cult hero continues to foment The Big Lie about vote fraud and insist that even with all the “forensic audits” he is demanding that he still won the 2020 election.

There have been many photo finishes over many decades of presidential elections. Richard Nixon lost to John F. Kennedy by 100,000 votes in 1960; he accepted the result and moved on. Al Gore lost to George W. Bush in 2000; that election wasn’t settled until the Supreme Court stopped a recount in Florida with Bush leading by 537 ballots; Bush was awarded the state’s electoral votes and he took the oath … after Gore conceded defeat and pledged his support of the new president.

The yammering that continues to this day about POTUS 45 collecting 74 million votes ignores the obvious, which is that his opponent received 7 million more votes and won the election!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Gullibility: Is it terminal?

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How many times must one say the same thing, that The Big Lie being fomented by a defeated, twice-impeached POTUS is destructive to the very institutions that the former Liar in Chief vowed to protect and defend?

Yet he keeps telling it. That the 2020 election was “stolen” through “widespread voter fraud,” that President Biden isn’t really the president of the United States, that the ex-POTUS actually won an election he lost bigly!

But he does. He tells the lie. The gullible among his cadre/cabal of believers buy into it. They cannot be dissuaded that their leader is a pathological liar who cannot tell the truth if it were to slap him on his ample backside.

It’s a frustration that gnaws at people such as yours truly who continue to insist that the 2020 election was conducted freely, fairly, legally and ethically. I mean, the POTUS brought in a team of experts to ensure it would done that way prior to the election.

The team, led by election overseer Christopher Krebs, did what they were charged to do. They assembled a process that produced the most secure election in U.S. history. What did they get for their success? They got canned! The ex-Imbecile in Chief fired Krebs for proclaiming the election’s integrity.

So, the frustration mounts as the former POTUS keeps conveying The Big Lie and cementing his place as the most dangerous former POTUS in American history.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Debt or investment?

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One man’s piling onto the national debt is another man’s “investment in the future.”

So it goes with the debate over Build Back Better, which is President Biden’s domestic spending initiative that is hung up in wrangling between congressional Democrats and Republicans and, yes, even between factions within the Democratic Party.

Whether it’s a $3.5 trillion spending package over 10 years or a $1.5 trillion package, it’s a lot of money.

What is so damn troubling, though, is that the GOP caucus is now worried about the national debt. It wasn’t worried one little bit about it when Donald Trump pitched an idea about cutting taxes for rich people, depriving the government of revenue it could “invest” in programs to help the rest of us. Now, though, it is all hung up on the debt and the cost of the infrastructure package that Biden and some within the Democratic caucus want.

Yeah, I know. It’s politics. That’s a family member of mine’s favorite rejoinder. It’s his fallback position when he can’t find any justification for the nonsense being bandied about.

It still stinks, man.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com