Tag Archives: Joe Biden

national news

Not bad at all, Mr. POTUS

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Well now, that wasn’t so bad.

President Biden held the first news conference of his presidency and it turned out to be, oh, pretty normal as far as these events go.

There was no berating of reporters — even though one of them kind of ventured way ahead of herself; more on that in a minute. There was some good-natured jabs, but all told the president answered the questions fairly, squarely and truthfully.

Biden holds 1st formal news conference, faces questions on pandemic, migrant surge (msn.com)

Kaitlin Collins of CNN, though, seemed to get ahead of the curve when she asked Biden if he intends to run for re-election in 2024. Biden, whose life experience has taught him grim lessons about fate, declined to say categorically that he will, although he did say he is planning on a re-election campaign.

Then she asked Biden if Vice President Kamala Harris would run with him, which seemed to be a seriously wasted moment. President Biden said Harris has been a valued partner and suggested clearly that she will be on the ticket with him if he decides to seek a second term.

Oh, and then Collins asked if he expected to run against Donald J. Trump. To which Biden laughed.

All in all, a solid effort. The president appears to be on top of matters and indicated that his years as a U.S. senator and as vice president will serve him well as he seeks to navigate his way through the legislative process.

We all will need to watch as the Biden presidency plays out.

Joe Biden

Stand tall, Mr. POTUS

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

President Biden had expected to stand triumphantly before the media at his first full-scale press conference.

He’ll be standing as tall as ever when reporters gather Thursday at the White House. However, he’s got some problems to confront.

Sure, he has the legislative triumph of securing the COVID-19 relief package to boast about; vaccines are rolling out by the millions of doses; he has exceeded his goal of 100 million vaccines in the first 100 days of the Biden presidency.

Biden faces a flurry of new challenges ahead of first White House news conference (msn.com)

But …

He has that crisis at the southern border. The nation is reeling from two massacres and the deaths of 18 Americans at the hands of lunatic gunmen. Pressure is growing within the Democratic Party for the president to put more Asians and Pacific Islanders in key government positions.

It won’t be a cakewalk to be sure. Reporters won’t be asking softball questions, nor should they. I have every expectation that President Biden will handle the tough questions with aplomb. What’s more, I do not expect him to label any reporter as “incompetent,” or “the enemy of the people,” or a “loser” who works for a “failing” media organization. He will stand firm and he will conduct himself in a manner we had grown to expect from our president.

It won’t be a walk through the White House Rose Garden, which goes with the territory. This lifetime public servant, President Biden, knows what to expect. I trust he’ll be ready for it.

national news

Can we debate like grownups?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

We have begun to debate — once again — the issue of guns, the Second Amendment and whether we can find a way to stop the madness of gun violence.

I’ll have to acknowledge that it hasn’t started off well. Republicans in the Senate, namely Ted Cruz of Texas, already have begun demagoguing the matter into insanity.

In a span of a little more than a week, shooters opened fire in Atlanta and Boulder, Colo. Eighteen people died in both massacres. The suspects are in custody and have been charged with multiple counts of murder. I feel confident that justice will do its work with regard to these two individuals.

What gives me concern is whether Congress, President Biden and all the political interests involved in this matter will allow the debate to proceed without scare tactics, lies, and demagoguery.

As I have noted already, the first signals don’t bode well.

I believe firmly that there must be a legislative — or an executive — solution to the issue of restricting gun sales without infringing on the Second Amendment guarantee of firearm ownership. Ted Cruz seems to think that any effort to enact those restrictions inhibits “law-abiding citizens” from owning a gun. That, as I see it, is a preposterous notion, because citizens who obey the law would have zero cause for worry.

Cruz then went after Democrats for chastising those whose only solution is to offer “thoughts and prayers,” suggesting that Democrats belong to some sort of Godless organization. Ridiculous.

I want to hear from constitutional scholars — from both sides of the great divide — who can tell us whether there exists a legislative solution that (a) limits the ability of nut jobs to purchase a gun and (b) doesn’t violate the Second Amendment’s constitutional guarantee that allows us to “keep and bear arms.”

I also want to stipulate that I do not have any solutions to this quandary. I know, though, that this great country is full of learned men and women who can produce a remedy to what I consider one of this nation’s existential threats.

Gun violence has turned damn near every venue that we all enter — churches, grocery stores, schools, playgrounds — into potential killing grounds. It has to stop!

crime news

Is this the moment for action?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Barack Obama wiped away tears while talking to the nation about the massacre of 20 first- and second-graders and six of their teachers in Newtown, Conn.; he implored Congress to toughen gun laws.

It didn’t act.

Donald Trump took office right after Obama and vowed to end “this American carnage.” It didn’t end during his term in office. He had opportunities to demand action from Congress, but he never took the bait.

Now it is Joe Biden who is facing the dilemma of what to do about the continuing senselessness of random gun violence. So it goes and so it will continue to go, more than likely.

In the span of a little more than a week, eight people died in Georgia at the hands of a gunman and then 10 more died from a shooter’s evil intent in Colorado. The first tragedy appears to be inspired by hate of Asians and of women. The motivation behind the second incident is still a bit murky.

What in  the name of righteous indignation happens now?

My hunch? Probably not a damn thing!

The National Rifle Association has sunk its claws deeply into the hides of many members of Congress, where laws could be created  that might be able to stem the “carnage” that Trump vowed to eradicate. The NRA stands firm on this preposterous notion that any law somehow would deprive “law-abiding citizens” of their constitutional right to “keep and bear arms.”

I will not let go of the notion that there is a legislative remedy out there that can be enacted. I want Congress to act. I am tired of the inattention to a solution that well might put an end — finally! — to the heartache that has spilled over yet again.

crime news

Time to act … again!

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

President Biden said the following today while commenting on the Boulder. Colo., massacre that left 10 people dead, including a police officer who rushed to the scene when the shooting started.

“I don’t need to wait another minute, let alone an hour, to take common sense steps that will save lives in the future and to urge my colleagues in the House and Senate to act,” Biden said in remarks at the White House following Monday’s shooting. “We can ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines in this country once again. I got that done when I was a senator. … We should do it again.”

OK. Do you think it will happen? Do you believe that lawmakers who snuggle up to the gun lobby are going to do the right thing?

Neither do I.

Which makes this latest plea for sane gun-control laws yet another exercise in extreme futility in this most recent moment of misery.

As The Hill reported: Biden called on the Senate to “immediately pass” two House-passed bills that would expand background checks for firearm sales, noting that both passed the Democrat-controlled lower chamber with some Republican support. One of the bills would close the so-called Charleston loophole by extending the initial background check review period from three to 10 days. The bill is linked to the 2015 shooting in Charleston, S.C., in which a white supremacist killed nine Black Americans at the Mother Emanuel AME Church.

Biden urges Congress to pass assault weapon ban | TheHill

Republican senators are likely to filibuster any effort at meaningful reform. It takes 60 votes to break the filibuster; that means a 50-50 Senate requires 10 GOP senators to cross over. They won’t do it.

I am beyond weary listening to gun lobbyists declare that any effort to strength gun laws somehow masks some nefarious plot to disarm Americans. I long have maintained that there must be a legislative solution that remains faithful to the Second Amendment to the Constitution, which allows citizens to “keep and bear arms.”

I am not alone in this belief. Sadly and tragically, the gun lobby with its big money and its bullying strategy continues to keep these remedies off the books. The result is inevitable: More Americans are going to die the way those 10 victims perished in Boulder.

Shameful.

Donald Trump, national news

C’mon back, Donald!

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Donald John Trump’s expected return to Republican Party political involvement just might be a good tonic for the nation, if not the GOP.

Why? Because the ex-president will be able to expose himself even more to the kind of self-centered narcissism that became one of the hallmarks of his time as president.

Trump reportedly is planning to get more involved in GOP primary activities, siding with candidates who oppose incumbents who weren’t sufficiently loyal to him.

As The Hill reports, though, many mainstream Republicans are none too happy to see The Donald step back into the arena after being beaten soundly by President Biden. They blame Trump for Georgia’s two U.S. Senate seats flipping from Republican to Democrat in the January runoff election. They are angry that Trump keeps repeating The Big Lie about the 2020 election being stolen from him.

Trump ramps up activities, asserts power within GOP | TheHill

As an ardent critic of Donald Trump, I am going to stop worrying about whether he plans to launch a return to political life. I see many hideous storm clouds on the horizon awaiting Trump. Prosecutors in New York and Georgia are looking for potential criminal culpability involving Trump. His once-fabled business “empire” is looking shakier all the time. Trump is facing hundreds of millions of dollars in debt that are coming due. All of that will become fodder for whoever wants to challenge The Donald.

To be sure, my sincerest hope of all is for Trump to vanish. I want him gone. His 15 minutes of political fame are up. He had his time on center stage … and blew it all apart.

I will watch with somewhat muted interest in this individual’s attempt at trying to cling to the power he possesses over a political party he grabbed by the throat and turned it into a cult of personality.

State news

‘Open borders’? Hah!

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

A South Texas congressional Democrat, Filemon Vela of Brownsville, today announced he won’t seek another term in the U.S. House of Representatives.

His seat had become a target for Republicans who see a chance to what had been a staunchly Democratic seat.

What slays me, though, is the reaction, as reported by the Texas Tribune, of the GOP in response to Vela’s unsurprising announcement:

“Filemon Vela knows Biden’s border crisis will cost him his seat and Democrats their House majority,” said House GOP campaign arm spokesperson Torunn Sinclair. “Texans deserve a congressman who is going to stand up to Biden’s open border agenda, not defend it.”

Open border agenda? Is this clown for real?

There is no “open border agenda” being pushed by President Biden. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas this weekend declared the border “is closed.”

Yes, the Biden administration has been caught flat-footed by the influx of undocumented immigrants seeking entry into the United States, particularly the unaccompanied children who have been rounded up and taken to holding centers, such as the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center in Dallas.

But … there is no “open border agenda” being pursued. The GOP campaign flack is spouting demagogic nonsense.

media news

Biden gets unfair criticism on this point

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

The criticism from right-wing media that President Biden isn’t talking as freely to reporters as his presidential predecessor is unfair to the point of being outrageous.

Donald Trump became (in)famous for spouting off to the media whenever someone showed up with a notebook, a microphone and a TV camera. He would ramble on and on, saying virtually nothing of substance and often would spout a lie or three while yapping to the media.

It was all a show, given that he labeled the media “the enemy of the people” and the purveyor of “fake news.”

Joe Biden prefers to let the White House press secretary, Jan Psaki, do the talking. I am all right with that as long as Psaki tells us the truth. I get that she has been needled for muttering too many “I’ll have to circle back” responses to questions she cannot answer directly.

President Biden is going to stage his first full-blown presidential news conference later this week. It’ll be something of a show, replete with a bit of presidential pomp and panache. Now that I think about it, we might see a bit of a return to the way President Kennedy would demonstrate his legendary quick wit, turning his press briefings into media events.

It’s all OK with me. Just make sure, Mr. POTUS, that your press flack tells us the truth when the media push her for answers.

national news

Hopes are being dashed

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

My hope for a swift return to what they refer to in Washington as “regular order” in Congress is being wiped away.

The hope rested on the election of Joe Biden as president of the United States. He is a man of the Senate. He knows how to legislate, how to get those on the “other side” to join him in the search for common ground.

I guess I didn’t count on the Senate being so fundamentally remade in the image that President Biden replaced, Donald John Trump.

Man, this transition from the Trump Era to the Biden Era so far hasn’t gone quite like I had hoped.

Congressional Republicans appear dug in deeply in their mistrust of the electoral process that produced a Biden victory. They have swallowed the snake oil that Trump has fed them about the election being “stolen.” The irony is stinking rich, given that many of those congressional GOP imposters took an oath to protect the very system they now contend is corrupt.

Well, we still have time. President Biden still has time to win them over. I won’t surrender to the darker impulses that still seem to pervade politics in Washington.

But my eternal hope for a return to regular order is getting dimmer by the week.

International news, national news

It’s a ‘crisis’ for sure

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

For those who think I am a Joe Biden suck-up who just cannot criticize the new president, here’s flash for you …

I believe President Biden misread and underestimated the impact of his immigration policy on our southern border and is now paying the price for allowing a full-blown crisis to develop.

Were I able to offer face-to-face advice to the president prior to his taking office, I would have said that his kinder/gentler immigration policy is going to entice immigrants into this country — and that he had better be prepared to handle the influx of human beings seeking a better life than the one they are leaving behind.

He didn’t do that.

To be sure, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is trying to assure the nation that the Biden administration has this matter under control, and that DHS and others intend to treat immigrants humanely. I want to believe Mayorkas.

The Biden approach to immigration issues presents a polar opposite strategy from what occurred during the Donald Trump years. Trump sought to round up everyone who was here illegally and deport them poste-haste back to wherever they came from. He separated children from their parents in what has been vilified as an act of abject cruelty.

Joe Biden took office promising a softer approach than the one offered by Donald Trump. If I was living in a Latin American nation and wanted to escape poverty, crime and repression for a new life in the U.S., you’re damn right I would do what I could to get there. If I was sending that message out to the world, which is what President Biden did, then I certainly would have thought out a strategy to deal with an expected tide of new arrivals.

President Biden needs to get both arms wrapped tightly around this matter in a major hurry. I am going to trust in the president’s desire to do right by those who seek entry into the Land of the Free. I also am going to implore him to stop worrying about what to call what is happening along our border.

It’s more than a “challenge,” Mr. President. It’s a “crisis.”