Tag Archives: Joe Biden

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The Big Lie lives on

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Congressional Republicans continue to cling to The Big Lie … and it’s infuriating as hell.

One of them, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, told ABC News that Congress has a responsibility to track down every known instance of voter fraud it can find relating to the 2020 presidential election. When he was told that there is no evidence of widespread fraud, Paul insisted on following that lie down the ol’ rabbit hole.

“There are two sides to every story,” he told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos. Except there isn’t another “side” to the lie fomented by Donald Trump, his acolytes in Congress and out here in Voter Land.

Then came Paul’s effort to defend his integrity by claiming that Stephanopoulos was calling him a liar. He wasn’t. Stephanopoulos said only that Paul and other GOP Trump cultists in the Senate have swallowed The Big Lie.

Let’s revisit what we know, OK?

Courts have ruled that there is no evidence of widespread fraud. President Biden won the election freely, fairly and without fraud. Every single state in the Union certified the results. The former Attorney General William Barr said there was no evidence of fraud on a scale that would determine the outcome of the election.

I get that no election is utterly and completely fraud-free. Every election since the founding of our republic has produced isolated incidents – a voter or two here and/or there – of people casting ballots illegally. Is that satisfactory? Of course not! It did not approach the level of “widespread fraud” that Trump alleged for the entire post-election period leading up to President Biden’s inauguration.

The Big Lie resulted in the terrorist attack on Capitol Hill and the second presidential impeachment of Donald Trump. It put members of Congress – including Sen. Paul – in dire danger of physical harm … or worse!

So, for the Trumpsters who remain in public office to continue to base their search for voter fraud on a lie – which they surely must know to be a lie – is the height (or depth) of hypocrisy.

media news, national news

No angry tweets … sweet!

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I want to stand with David Plouffe, one of America’s most brilliant political strategists.

He wrote this message on Twitter: Will take a while to get used to waking up on a weekend and not be bombarded with a dozens of mean, crazy and destructive tweets from the world’s most powerful person. But I like the feeling so far.

I like the feeling, too. I like not having my Twitter feed flooded with posts from an angry president of the United States. I like reading about how senior presidential administration officials are learning they are being fired, or are learning about critical policy decisions, or are having to fend off criticism from the commander in chief.

The silence is golden.

national news

Sens. Cruz, Hawley earn their scorn

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

U.S. Sens. Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley try to defend their objection to certifying Joe Biden’s election as president by declaring they were doing the bidding of those who question the integrity of the election.

They did the bidding of the majority of Republicans who question it. Why did they disbelieve that President Biden won the election fairly? Because the guy Biden beat, Donald Trump, filled their numb skulls with the lie about the existence of “widespread voter fraud.”

Cruz and Hawley are two of the numbest skulls in the Senate. That is difficult for me to state because Cruz is a Harvard Law graduate, while Hawley got his law degree from Stanford. These men are not stupid. They are infected with the desire to become president someday. Cruz sought the highest office in 2016, but lost the Republican nomination to Donald Trump.

Hawley, from Missouri, got elected in 2018, but he’s already casting his gaze at the White House.

Will they resign, which some of their colleagues are demanding? Cruz is getting lots of media heat, with three major Texas newspapers calling for him to quit: the El Paso Times, the San Antonio Express-News and his hometown Houston Chronicle.

Sad to say, but I don’t expect either of them to pack it in. They will continue to rouse the rabbles in the Senate and will continue to obstruct President Biden’s agenda.

They both should quit. They have shamed themselves and the legislative body where they serve. Cruz and Hawley’s objection to Joe Biden’s election was based solely on a lie. They knew it was a lie when they yapped and yammered about voter fraud. That makes them unfit to represent their respective states and unfit to act on laws that affect all Americans.

national news

Waiting for normal political climate

(AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

One of these days, maybe soon, Americans are going to get past the aftershocks of the political era that ended earlier this week.

Donald Trump has exited the White House. President Joe Biden has gotten right to work. But wait! We have another Senate trial awaiting us.

That, too, will become history. Senators can concentrate on other issues that affect the many millions of us who are weary of the pandemic, those who have been sickened by it, those who are mourning the loss of loved ones.

I am waiting with a certain degree of anxiousness for an end to the turmoil that continues to roil the waters.

It might take a long, long while for total normality to return. I am hoping we can experience that return even in increments. If we continue the journey back from the tempest that Donald Trump created almost daily, we will realize the progress we are making in real time.

I am acutely aware that there will be impediments to that recovery. It rests largely with the Trumpsters who continue to occupy public offices and those who bought into the Big Lie that Trump kept fomenting, the one about alleged voter thievery in the presidential election. We all witnessed the result of what that gullibility produced; the Capitol Hill insurrection was frightening in the extreme and to be candid, I haven’t gotten over it yet.

A new day will arrive. We will be cleansed eventually from the toxicity that Donald Trump brought us.

I am ready for a new day.

business news

GOP turns hawkish on deficit

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Someone needs to explain something to me.

Congressional Republicans saw no problem with running up a federal budget deficit when a president of their own party pitched a massive tax cut that would necessarily run that deficit into the stratosphere.

Now their guy has lost an election and the new president, Joe Biden, wants to enact a hefty package aimed at providing relief to Americans suffering from the COVID pandemic.

Republicans’ response? No can do, they say, because it would — get set for it — run up the deficit!

OK, so why is it that one deficit-explosion notion is OK but another one that would cost a huge sum of money to help Americans is not OK? What gives?

I know the answer. It’s politics. That’s all it is.

Yet there can be little doubt we’re going to hear the GOP blame Democrats for “playing politics” with COVID relief. It’s their mantra. Their siren song.

President Biden is pitching a $1.9 trillion package that includes a $1,400 payment to Americans who qualify for it. It also expedites delivery of vaccines to states. Its aim is to jumpstart the economy while seeking to turn the tide against the pandemic. Does it spend more money that the government does not have on hand? Yes.

Let’s look back briefly. Joe Biden became vice president in 2009 as the national economy was in free fall. He and President Obama came up with a massive relief program that bailed out the auto industry and helped shore up a collapsing financial industry. It, too, boosted the deficit.

What happened next? The economy revived. More Americans went to work. The deficit that skyrocketed began to recede. By the time the Obama-Biden administration handed it over to the Donald Trump, the deficit had been pared to less than half of what it was when Obama took office in 2009.

I will await an explanation for why congressional Republicans suddenly have resorted to their game of fear about bold initiatives.

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Time to toughen up

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

This blog is anticipating a bit of an identity crisis.

Readers of High Plains Blogger grew accustomed, I shall presume, that it would be critical of anything the immediate past president would say or do. I get that it might have become too predictable. I won’t apologize, though, for the tone it took while commenting on Donald Trump’s tenure as president.

Now we have a new guy in power. President Biden has planted himself behind the Resolute Desk and has been issuing executive orders left and right, up and down.

I intend to look as critically at Joe Biden as I did at Donald Trump. That does not mean I intend to be as critical of the current president as I was on the former president. It does mean that I will speak critically when the needs arise, when the issues warrant it, when I get a bur under my saddle.

That’s what bloggers ought to do.

I am going to make a vow, which is that I won’t flinch when President Biden makes an error. No one is perfect, correct? I have long believed that humankind contained only one perfect person, but he was crucified because the rest of us are born sinners.

As for the new president, he so far presents a refreshing change from what we have endured over the past four years. He isn’t tweeting his brains out; he isn’t scolding our allies and snuggling with our foes; he has put his staffers on notice, that if they mistreat anyone that he will fire them “on the spot.”

I want him to be fair and to deal forthrightly with Americans. I also want President Biden to retain the conscious belief that he works for us and that voters are the ultimate bosses in determining the direction our government takes.

I intend to keep my eyes and ears open.

national news

Let the trial begin …

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer has made it official.

The U.S. Senate will commence the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump on Feb. 8. That’s fine for a couple of key reasons.

The House will send the Senate the single impeachment article on Monday, triggering the eventual start of the trial. The House of Representatives impeached Trump on a charge of incitement of insurrection. You saw what he did on the Sixth of January, inciting the riot that stormed Capitol Hill while Congress was meeting to certify President Biden’s victory on Nov. 3.

Why is the delay in the trial a good thing?

For one, Donald Trump is entitled to the best defense he can get. A delay allows the former president to assemble a legal team to defend him in the Senate. For the life of me I don’t know how you defend what I witnessed was the indefensible. Trump’s team will try to accomplish what I consider to be the impossible.

Secondly, delaying the trial enables the Senate commence on the important task of confirming President Biden’s Cabinet nominees and get to work on important legislation concerning pandemic relief, climate change, immigration reform and other issues the president has deemed critical.

I get that the Senate can “walk and chew gum at the same time,” as senators have noted. Delaying a trial won’t do any harm to determining the outcome. A delay allows Trump’s team to get its stuff together; it also allows House managers to do the same.

And so … let the trial begin eventually and let Congress get to work repairing the damage that the former president inflicted on our government.

State news

Paxton seeks way out from under cloud

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Whenever I see and hear about Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton launching a legal pursuit my mind drifts automatically to the troubles he continues to face.

Paxton is suing the Biden administration over its decision to suspend deportation of immigrants. He says President Biden’s order is in direct violation of an agreement that Biden’s predecessor signed before he left office.

OK, whatever.

I cannot help but wonder about Paxton’s motives, even as he acts in conjunction with his Texas constitutional responsibility.

I don’t trust Ken Paxton’s judgment in the least.

He is awaiting a trial in state court over an allegation that he defrauded investors in a securities fraud matter. A Collin County grand jury indicted him in 2015; his case has dragged on for more than five years.

Plus, we now know that the FBI is looking into allegations by his top legal assistants that he is abusing the power of his office as AG. The feds are looking into it to determine whether there is enough to pursue criminal action.

Don’t you feel well represented by this mediocre lawyer? I damn sure don’t. I want him to resign his office. He embarrassed Texas by filing a ridiculous lawsuit with the Supreme Court that sought to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in several states that voted for President Biden; he wanted the court to overturn those results on phony constitutional grounds. SCOTUS tossed his lawsuit aside, with all three of Donald Trump’s appointees voting with the majority opinion.

Texas AG Ken Paxton needs to quit his office. He needs to return to private life. Every public decision he makes is shrouded by suspicion in many Texans’ eyes — including mine — that we are being represented by a crook.

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Dr. Fauci: free at last!

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Dr. Anthony Fauci made a declaration of sorts this week when he conducted a briefing to the world about the progress of the federal government’s war against the killer pandemic.

He declared his “liberation” from a presidential administration that didn’t allow him to speak the unvarnished truth about the crisis we are facing. He now answers to the Joe Biden administration, which has declared loudly and forthrightly that it intends to rely on the science to determine its course of action in fighting the disease.

Its point man is actually going to be able to take the point. President Biden asked Fauci to serve as the administration’s senior medical adviser. Fauci accepted the request “on the spot,” according to the president.

This week he offered the latest data on the effects of the virus. He did so knowing that he won’t be challenged or criticized or ridiculed by the president … who now happens to be a private citizen. The new president, Joe Biden, is listening and heeding the advice of the world’s premier infectious disease expert.

Free at last! yes, Dr. Fauci? Millions of us across the land welcome your newfound liberation.

Joe Biden

Wishing to put distance between now and the immediate past

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

It might be just me, but I am sensing a serious desire among many millions of Americans who yearn to welcome a new presidential administration with an extra sense of zeal.

We’ve been through a tumultuous past four years. It started with a president declaring an end to what he called “this American carnage.” The presidential term ended with another rash of carnage spilling on the steps of our nation’s Capitol Building, inside the structure, threatening the very democratic process that makes us proud to be Americans.

We somehow got through the horrible event of the Sixth of January. The House the following week then impeached the president for inciting the riot that erupted on Capitol Hill. A week after that we welcomed President Biden and Vice President Harris to the pinnacle of power.

The former president jetted off to Florida. Vice President Pence managed to shake the hands of the new president and vice president.

I cannot possibly know what is in the hearts of all Americans. My own heart is quite full tonight after watching one of the strangest inaugurals I ever have witnessed.

There were no large crowds. No grand parade. The former president and the new president did not share a limo ride from the White House to the Capitol.

Throughout the day, my sense has been a feeling of relief that the past is behind us along with a strong desire to put it farther behind us … in rapid fashion!

Yes, many crises confront the new president and vice president. The pandemic needs focused attention from the center of our federal government. Our worldwide allies need assurance that our nation has returned to its rightful place on center stage. Our climate is changing. Our nation is torn by racial strife.

I get a sense that we now have considerable faith in President Biden and Vice President Harris are up to the task of moving us forward.