Tag Archives: Joe Biden

national news

No end yet to angry rhetoric

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

It was too much to expect a quick fix, an early and immediate end to the angry rhetoric that accompanied the tenure of Donald Trump as president of the United States.

Perhaps it was naive to expect such a miraculous occurrence.

Still, with President Biden’s aggressive approach to dealing with the myriad crises confronting the nation, I had a smidgen of hope that there might be some relief from the white-hot expressions coming from those on the right, the far right and from the political loony bin.

One week into the Biden presidency, I continue to wait for the relief. I fear it’s going to take a long while.

We keep hearing from the QAnon nut jobs who were elected to Congress. The Trumpkin Corps keeps yammering about how their voices will not be stilled, that by golly, more than 74 million of them cast their ballots for The Donald. They ignore the obvious, which is that President Biden collected 81 million-plus votes. And … he rolled up 306 Electoral College votes, the same number Trump pulled in four years earlier; remember, too, that Trump called his victory in 2016 over Hillary Clinton a “landslide,” which of course it was nothing of the sort.

My sincere eternal hope is that we can restore much more civility to our discourse than we have seen and heard during the Trump Era. Donald Trump is vanquished from the White House. His minions in Congress remain in office. They continue to whoop and holler about vote fraud. They bitch about Joe Biden’s aggressive use of executive orders. They gripe about his big and bold ideas to salvage our economy. The lunatics among them keep using social media to harp on conspiracy theories resulting from all the lies that Trump fed them.

The tone will improve. That’s my hope. I await the day I when can call it my expectation.

International news

Putin isn’t your pal, Mr. POTUS

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

President Biden and Russian dictator Vladimir Putin chatted the other day.

They reportedly covered — according to a read-out supplied to the media by the White House — a number of topics. They included at least two topics that Donald Trump refused repeatedly to mention to his pal Vlad: the bounty paid to Taliban terrorists who kill American service personnel on t he battlefield and the Russian interference in our elections.

What a change in tone. What a welcome change.

President Biden has made it clear, or so it appears, that he doesn’t plan to be Vladimir Putin’s friend. He wants to assert U.S. moral authority. He wants to engage Russia on nuclear arms reduction. Biden intends to face Russia down on its efforts to subvert Ukraine.

Trump boasted of his deal-making prowess but he never came close to negotiating a nuclear arms reduction deal with his good pal Putin.

Biden enters this relationship with a long history of involvement in foreign policy discussions. Let’s remember that he formerly chaired or was ranking member of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee before he became vice president for two terms serving under President Obama.

Indeed, the White House read-out of the meeting is something the public didn’t get for the past four years during Donald Trump’s term. No one ever knew what the two men talked about, except what Trump would say out loud; and we all know how believable Donald Trump could be, right?

To be sure, the read-out only reveals what the White House wants us to know. However, my own sense is that the Biden administration will deal much more forthrightly and candidly with Vladimir Putin than the Trump administration ever did.

President Biden has laid down an important marker at least by challenging Putin on the hideous report of the bounties he paid for the lives of American service personnel.

Don’t let up, Mr. President.

environmental news

Climate change: existential threat

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

President Biden has blasted his way out of the chute determined to make good on proclamations he made along the campaign trail.

He has a pandemic with which to deal. He vows to restore our worldwide alliances. Biden vows to boost our economy with a titanic stimulus package. Oh, and he wants to tackle climate change head-on, full throttle.

I want to explore briefly the climate change matter.

In one of his first acts as president, Biden signed an executive order returning the United States to the worldwide Paris Climate Accord, from which Donald Trump pulled this nation.

Then he named John Kerry the head of a newly created position, special envoy on climate change. Kerry comes to this task with an impressive personal and professional record: combat veteran of the Vietnam War, senator from Massachusetts, secretary of state during the second term of the Barack Obama administration.

He now takes on the role of climate change envoy to communicate with the world on policies enacted by the Biden administration  dealing with climate change.

President Biden is  taking precisely the opposite approach to climate change than the one articulated by Donald Trump. Biden calls climate change an “existential threat” to the nation; Trump calls it a “hoax.” It isn’t a hoax. It’s the real thing. It is harming us tangibly. It poses a threat to Earth and to our ability over the long term to continue to thrive, let alone survive, on the only planet we can call home.

Biden wants to suspend oil and natural gas leases. He intends to re-energize — no pun intended — efforts to develop renewable energy sources. The president plans to restore the tougher air quality rules and  regulations that Donald Trump rescinded.

John Kerry doesn’t take on this task peering through sparkly glasses. He is realistic about the threat. Kerry said recently that even if we reduce carbon emissions today to “zero,” we still might be unable to reverse the effects of climate change on Earth’s environment.

* * *

I must add an important caveat to what I hope is a concerted effort to stem to effect of climate change. Someone will have to explain to me how our military establishment will operate the equipment it uses in a climate-friendly manner. Our jets, naval vessels, and our vast array of land vehicles — tanks, trucks, fighting vehicles, armored personnel carriers — require fossil fuels to operate. If we can find our way to balance those needs with strategies that attack the existential threat many of us believe is out there … then we might be able to save the world.

I want to give President Biden a push in the direction he needs to go to attack climate change.

Uncategorized

Trump likely to escape … again!

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Virtually all of me wants the Senate to convict Donald Trump of “incitement of insurrection.”

No matter how much I want to will the Senate to do the right thing, political reality is staring all of us in the puss. Conviction requires 17 Senate Republicans to join their Democratic colleagues in convicting Trump.

A conviction won’t remove him from the presidency. A clear majority of voters did that on Nov. 3 when we elected Joe Biden to be our next president. Oh, I am so happy to among the 81.2 million Americans who spoke loudly and clearly.

Let  us face reality, though.

Donald Trump still commands the attention of too many Senate Republicans, who fear the Trumpster Corps scattered across the land. The Trump cultists are rattling their proverbial sabers, threatening senators with dire political consequences if they vote to convict their guy, The Donald, the former Liar in Chief, the huckster, the con man, the phony, the fraud … stop me before I run out of breath.

Only five GOP senators voted this week that the trial is constitutional. They are right. The 45 Rs who stuck together are wrong. The Constitution doesn’t require a president to be in office for the House  to impeach him. Indeed,  the House did impeach Trump — for the second time! — just a week before he left office.

Now he is gone. The aim of the Senate is to secure a conviction and then to cast a simple-majority vote to deny Trump from ever seeking public office.

Here,  though, is another reality. Donald Trump will not be elected president ever again! His sounding the bugle for the terrorists who stormed Capitol Hill on the Sixth of January sealed his political fate.

If only the Senate could find enough Republicans with sufficient courage to convict him. I fear the worst outcome, that Donald Trump will skate through this latest Senate trial.

medical news

Biden moves quickly on pandemic fight

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

President Biden is wasting no time proving he means what he says about pulling out all the stops in fighting the killer pandemic.

The president today ordered 200 million more doses of the vaccine that is expected to help eradicate the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States.

This, dear friends, is music to my pointy ears.

Now, a bit of full disclosure.

A very close and dear member of my family has just been released from the hospital, where she spent four weeks, most of the time hooked up to a respirator. She now is resting at home with her husband and her golden Labrador retriever.

This is my way of telling you that this disease cuts me close to the quick and I am not going to relent one iota in following the recommended measures to maintain my own health, along with the health of our beloved family members.

President Biden said during his inaugural speech that we should wear masks and do all the things we need to do out of love for our country. I love my country, Mr. President! I hear you, sir!

I also want you to ensure the nation that you do not let up — not at all, not one bit! — in maintaining our national resolve to rid us all of this killer virus.

The death count passed the “horrific” status long ago. It is climbing as I write these words. It came too damn close to claiming someone who is very special to me.

Two hundred million more doses on the way? Yes! Bring more … many more!

Uncategorized

Surviving these trying times

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

To suggest we have been living in trying times is to commit the Mother of Understatements.

We have just said good riddance to someone who in my humble view is without question the most incompetent, imbecilic, venal and vile man ever to occupy the office of president of the United States. You know to whom I refer, so I won’t bother mentioning his name.

We also have this pandemic that continues to kill an alarming number of Americans every day.

It is fair to ponder how we get through this time, through all these crises. I do so practically daily.

My hope is for strength and for patience. Our new president, Joe Biden, is a decent man, in many ways the antithesis of the individual he replaced in the White House. He is enacting policy changes at a blinding pace as he settles in behind the Resolute Desk.

The first order of business is to get rid of the pandemic. President Biden has declared that he is establishing a “war footing” as he fights the virus; he will enact the Defense Production Act to mobilize all available federal resources to the fight against what his predecessor called an “unseen enemy.”

I await the results to bear real and tangible benefit. It will take time. We must not fool ourselves into believing a quick solution is just around the corner.

The Senate trial will be over and behind us likely soon after it begins. Do not expect a conviction of the former president who incited the insurrection on the Sixth of January. If it happens, you will find no one more excited than me; if it doesn’t, well, we will know the names of the Senate cowards who couldn’t put loyalty to the Constitution above their loyalty to an individual.

As we fend off the temptation to assess blame, though, let us give ample thanks to the system ingrained in our government by the wise men who built it in the late 18th century. It is far from perfect, but we knew that to be the case. Our system remains the best hope for the world to emulate.

The difficult era through which we have just passed likely won’t fade soon into our distant memory. How do I know that? Because I continue to write about it on this blog and I am not alone in spending emotional energy on the bygone era.

It will fade eventually. I long for the day when we can look exclusively forward without pondering the hell through which we all traveled.

Uncategorized

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.