Tag Archives: Joe Biden

national news

Time makes Person of Year pick … sigh

6 Comments

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I’ll be candid: Time magazine’s selection for Person of the Year is not the choice I wanted the venerable publication to make.

It’s not that I object strenuously with Time naming President-elect Biden and Vice President-elect Harris as its Person of the Year. It is that I wanted the mag to honor an entire category of human beings: those on the front lines in the fight against the coronavirus … namely the first responders, health care workers, educators. Those folks are society’s heroes and they earned the honor of Person of the Year.

But that’s just me, I suppose.

As for the president- and vice president-elect, they indeed made history. They defeated the most corrupt, amoral, venal and disgraceful presidential administration in U.S. history. They did so convincingly. Joe Biden deserves kudos for making history by selecting Kamala Harris, the first black and first candidate of South Asian descent to run with him as vice president.

They both acquitted themselves well on the campaign trail. They have rolled up 81 million votes en route to a solid Electoral College majority. Biden and Harris are assembling a first-class team with which to govern.

In some ways, the Time choice is the politically safe choice. Winning presidents (and this case winning VPs) often get the Person of the Year nod.

However, the pandemic is the overwhelming story of 2020. The chief element of that story, in my view, has been the heroism displayed in hospital emergency rooms, ICU rooms and the bedsides of COVID-19 patients; moreover, there have been heroes abounding in our classrooms as educators seek to teach our children amid the threat of exposure to a potentially deadly virus.

And this heroism is a worldwide phenomenon.

So, I’ll accept Time’s choice simply as the editors’ call. It’s not one I would have made but it’s their magazine, their decision.

Just to be clear — one more time: I am delighted that we’re about to welcome Joe Biden and Kamala Harris as our new president and vice president.

national news

106 House GOP members form an infamous cabal

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

One hundred six members of the U.S. House of Representatives have formed a cabal that has joined what has been called an act of sedition against the U.S. government.

They signed on to a lawsuit brought by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to overturn the electoral results in four states that endorsed President-elect Joe Biden’s bid to become president.

Yes, roughly half of the GOP House caucus has signed on to a plan to undercut the democratic process. They want to throw out the votes of millions of Americans. They want those states’ electors to vote for Donald Trump and not Joe Biden, even though the president-elect earned more votes than Trump in the 2020 presidential election.

They are shameful seditionists who should be defeated when they stand for re-election in 2022.

legal news

Good news and better news

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

There might be some good news and even better news to come from the U.S. Supreme Court.

The good news would be that the court will declare that a profoundly stupid and senseless lawsuit will not get a hearing; that the court will dismiss it summarily.

The lawsuit comes from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, the state’s indicted top lawyer, who is suing to have the presidential vote results in Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania tossed out because, Paxton alleges, they were cast illegally. Seventeen state attorneys general — all Republicans (imagine that) — have joined Paxton’s idiotic legal maneuver.

The better news would be that all nine justices lock arms and declare in a stern rebuke of Donald Trump’s attempt to undermine, subvert and destroy the democratic electoral process. Chief Justice John Roberts can issue the order to fire off the rhetorical barrage. My hope is that the chief does so.

Donald John Trump needs to be exposed as the fraud that he is and the nation’s highest court can lend its voice to that important message by telling us why it is tossing his baseless, phony complaint about “widespread voter fraud” into the trash can … where it belongs!

military news

Lloyd Austin needs to lead DOD

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I will get to the point immediately. Lloyd Austin is an outstanding selection to become our nation’s next secretary of defense and the U.S. Senate should confirm him.

Indeed, Austin’s nomination from President-elect Biden comes with a caveat: He needs a congressional waiver to serve as the leading defense official in the government. Austin retired four years ago from the U.S. Army; federal law requires that defense secretaries need to have been out of the military at least seven years.

Austin served with honor and distinction. He was a four-star general. He led the Central Command before retiring from the Army. He has led men and women in combat. Austin would become the nation’s first African-American defense secretary.

I get the need to ensure civilian control of the military. Thus, Austin is now “Mr. Austin,” not “Gen. Austin.” He is a civilian.

Congress granted a waiver for Donald Trump’s first defense secretary, James Mattis, who needed the exemption because his service in the Marine Corps fell within the seven-year window. Mattis served well as defense secretary until he resigned in a major snit with the commander in chief.

I should note that my hope would be that future defense secretaries shouldn’t require the waiver that Austin will need. Future presidents, or even the president who’s about the take office, should be able to find competent, capable patriots to lead our military services who do not have the conflict that confronts Lloyd Austin.

Lloyd Austin, though, is highly regarded by the individuals who served under his command. The waiver should be granted. President-elect Biden needs a defense secretary he can trust. He found one in Lloyd Austin.

Let this patriot serve the nation.

national news

‘Third Obama term’ taking shape?

1 Comment

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

President-elect Biden keeps insisting he isn’t seeking to govern with an executive branch lineup that constitutes what amounts to a “third Barack Obama term” as president.

But wait a second.

His selection to be agriculture secretary served in that capacity in the Obama administration; his choice to serve as domestic policy adviser served as national security adviser to President Obama; his nominee to lead the Veterans Affairs Department served as chief of staff for President Obama; Biden’s selection to lead to the effort to deal with climate change served as secretary of state … for the Obama team.

Biden’s team includes other Obama retreads. Granted, they all are talented individuals who did well during their earlier stints in public office.

Let me be clear on this point: I consider President Obama’s two terms as president to be highly successful. Joe Biden served as vice president during that time. However, the president-elect has a vast reservoir of talent from which he can choose. I am curious as to the apparent leaning on former Obama aides to join him.

If he is going to insist that his term as president isn’t a “third term” for Barack Obama, then Joe Biden ought to populate the highest levels of his executive team with many more fresh faces and voices.

The president-elect’s selection of Obama hands makes it difficult for him to dispute the notion he wants to govern with a “third term” from Barack Obama’s time in office.

Uncategorized

Oh, the post-Trump era awaits

1 Comment

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I am staring straight into the face of a serious quandary.

What in the word am I going to do when Donald Trump exits the political stage on Jan. 20?

He’ll actually be out of the White House before then — more than likely. Trump won’t have the good manners or sense of decorum to attend President Biden’s inaugural. He’ll be sitting somewhere off-site, no doubt with his Twitter fingers itching to say something, anything derogatory about the new president.

That is going to leave bloggers and other commentators such as me without the grist on which we have relied since the day Donald and Melania Trump rode down the escalator at Trump Tower to announce that The Donald was running for president.

Good gawd, it’s been a hideous period since then. However, it has given High Plains Blogger plenty of material on which to comment.

Now comes President Biden. Boring ol’ Joe. He’s such a regular guy. He’s a product of public service, having served in the public eye since before he was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1972.

Joe Biden stands in stark contrast to the background that Donald Trump brought to the only public office he ever sought. Biden wants to serve the public. He puts others’ interests ahead of his own. He knows about “regular order” in the Senate and plans to insist on it as president.

Biden won’t be firing angry Twitter messages at all hours of the day and night. He likely won’t fire Cabinet members who displease him simply by contradicting some wild statements he might make.

Folks, we are re-entering a time of political norms that have been plowed asunder by the ghastly whims of Donald Trump.

What to do? I pledge to look at policy pronouncements that come from the president, or from his senior Cabinet leaders, or from Republicans and Democrats in Congress who will serve with Joe Biden as partners in the complex federal government.

I will seek to resist the temptation to blast those who make preposterous statements … although I cannot possibly make an ironclad promise to never speak ill of them.

As for the 45th president. He becomes irrelevant in my eyes on Jan. 20 … if not sooner!

legal news

Sanity must prevail … or else

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I am a firm believer in judicial sanity, which is to say that sane minds are likely to prevail in the face of insane legal challenges.

Thus, we have a U.S. Supreme Court roster of justices who will get to decide whether a lawsuit brought forward by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has merit and is worth hearing.

Judicial sanity would seem to dictate that this is a slam dunk for the nation’s highest court. It should toss the matter aside. My hope for the sake of judicial sanity prevailing is that it does so with a terse statement that says in effect: Texas has no standing to bring this case to this court.

Paxton, who appears to be a lousy lawyer, wants the SCOTUS to overturn the results of four states that voted Nov. 3 for President-elect Joe Biden. From the get-go my question has been this: How in the name of election meddling can one state purport to intervene in the electoral affairs of another state? 

Therein might lie the case for judicial sanity presenting itself. The high court should tell AG Paxton to mind his own bee’s wax and butt the hell out. He cannot bring a lawsuit against four states that all have certified the results of their presidential balloting results.

I would say that sanity is a sure thing to prevail, except for this: 17 states’ attorneys general have joined Paxton’s clown show and signed on as intervenors in this idiotic lawsuit. All the AGs have swilled the Donald Trump Kool-Aid and are seeking — and this is as rich as it gets — to overturn the legitimate electoral results of a free and fair election.

I believe in the U.S. Constitution. I believe in the power of reason. I continue to believe that judicial sanity is going to have the final say on this profoundly un-American legal challenge.

national news

Trump testing faith in strength of U.S. Constitution

2 Comments

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Donald J. Trump is testing my resolve, my belief in the strength of the U.S. Constitution.

I don’t expect that faith to collapse. I do not expect the defeated president to prevail in his effort to undermine, subvert and destroy our democratic form of government.

I say all that, though, while expressing concern about the course this post-election fire fight is going. It’s making me nervous.

Seventeen states joined the moronic Texas lawsuit that seeks to overturn the election results of four states that voted for President-elect Joe Biden. They’re all states that voted for Trump. They all are governed by those with the same imbecilic view that the election was stolen from Trump by “widespread vote fraud.”

Dammit to hell! There was no such thing! Joe Biden won a free, fair and honest election. Fair and square! If the U.S. attorney general, William Barr — who’s served as Trump’s water carrier — says so, then it must be true. Isn’t that right?

Donald Trump is making a shambles of this transition, which historically has been done without malice, with no outward anger. Not this time. Trump is clinging desperately to an illusion and he’s making a mockery of our sacred political institutions.

Moreover, he is embarrassing the nation he was elected in 2016 to govern. Our allies are laughing at us; our foes are relishing the confusion and discord he is sowing.

This likely will end OK. Joe Biden will take the presidential oath on Jan. 20. He will get to work. I am less confident today than I was a few days or weeks ago about the outcome of this protracted battle. I retain my faith in the U.S. Constitution and the sturdiness of the framework that our founders built.

But … dang! Donald Trump is making it harder to maintain my eternal optimism.

national news

Country already scored a ‘victory’

2 Comments

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Donald Trump fired off this Twitter message today …

“We will be INTERVENING in the Texas (plus many other states) case. This is the big one. Our Country needs a victory!” 

The “Texas … case” to which Trump referred is the moronic lawsuit filed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton that seeks to overturn the duly cast votes in four states in the presidential election.

It’s not clear to anyone how Trump plans to “intervene,” whether as an individual or as a spokesman for his failed re-election campaign.

I just want to add this: The nation already got the “victory” it needed when it elected Joe Biden as its next president.

legal news, political news, State news

Paxton seeks to bask in some perverse glory

2 Comments

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I have concluded, based on zero hard data and only on my inherent bias that I admit to freely, that Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is hellbent on making a spectacle of himself.

He seeks to bask in some sort of perverse glory derived from Donald Trump’s idiotic pursuit of “widespread voter fraud” where none exists. Thus, Paxton has filed a lawsuit with the U.S. Supreme Court that seeks to overturn the free and fair election results in four states that cast most of their votes for President-elect Joe Biden in the just completed presidential election.

Paxton’s alleged “logic” is beyond belief.

He says the four states — Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Georgia — changed their voting rules in an unconstitutional fashion by allowing more voters to cast their ballots using the U.S. Postal Service. He wants the high court, therefore, to toss out those states’ election returns.

To its credit, the SCOTUS — with three justices nominated by Donald Trump already aboard — has declared already that another lawsuit brought by a Pennsylvania GOP member of Congress has no merit; it has tossed it aside with a single-sentence ruling.

So what the hell is Paxton trying to do here? I mean, the dude already is in trouble already. He is awaiting trial in Texas courts for securities fraud allegations. He also is being investigated by the FBI for allegedly doing favors illegally for a campaign donor. Seven key legal aides have quit or been fired by the AG after they blew the whistle on what they allege is illegal conduct.

The word on Paxton is that he was a mediocre lawyer prior to his election to the Texas Legislature, where he didn’t distinguish himself as the author of much key legislation. Then he got elected Texas AG in 2014 and was almost immediately showered with suspicion when a Collin County grand jury indicted him for securities fraud.

Now this? The AG must have a screw loose.

Let me be as clear as possible: Joe Biden won the election; there is no evidence of the kind of “widespread” fraud that Trump and his Trumpster Team allege. Even the U.S. attorney general, William Barr, has reached that conclusion.

Ken Paxton needs to stop meddling in other states’ affairs.