Tag Archives: Joe Biden

national news

Trump seeking to stay in the game? Oh, my … no!

REUTERS/James Glover II

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Donald John Trump reportedly wants to remain a player in Republican Party politics once he’s shown the door out of the White House.

My goodness. I don’t whether to laugh or spit!

Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich has posited a notion that the most damning part of Trump’s legacy is the 46.8 percent of Americans — that’s 74 million of them — who voted for his re-election despite the damage he delivered to the presidency and possibly to democracy itself during his term in office.

They stand behind this clown’s attempts to cling to power despite losing to President-elect Joe Biden, who hauled in 81.2 million votes. They endorse his phony allegations of voter fraud. They applaud his effort to subvert democracy by challenging the certified results delivered by the Electoral College.

If this is the future of a once-great Grand Old Party, then so be it. Frankly, it portends a long, dark winter in the wilderness for the GOP if it continues to hang onto the fraudulent “ideology” for which Trump supposedly stands.

That presents a sad era in this country, which has flourished with healthy and constructive debate between two viable political parties. Indeed, President-elect Biden’s task as he takes over the executive branch is made all the more formidable with Trump continuing to bloviate from the peanut gallery. The aim appears clear: It is to “freeze” other potential presidential contenders who might consider making a White House run in 2024.

Donald Trump presided over a failed presidency. It is that clear to me and to most Americans who cast their votes in record numbers.

If he wants to remain a player, well, that falls squarely on the Republicans who have endorsed this venal individual’s quest for absolute power.

national news

Trump turns the seamless into agony

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Donald John Trump’s legacy as president didn’t have far to fall, but that didn’t deter Trump from doing all he can to destroy what little positive impact his term as president would have on the nation.

President-elect Joe Biden’s team needed a “seamless transition” from Trump’s team after the Nov. 3 election. Biden won the election handily. Trump, of course, has refused to concede. He is throwing up roadblocks along the way.

The seamless, peaceful transition now resembles nothing of the sort. Biden’s team is struggling to obtain needed intelligence from Trump’s national security apparatus. To be clear, the transition — so far! — appears set to occur without gunshots or tanks in the street. To that end, it will be a “peaceful” transfer of power from one administration to the next.

The “seamless” portion, though, also is part of our political custom. Presidents have lost their re-election efforts in the past and then presided over smooth transfers of power to the men who beat them. President Carter did so after the 1980 election, as did President George H.W. Bush in 1992. Sure, they spoke through gritted teeth when conceding to Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton, but they did and they behaved like statesmen while they handed over the reins of power to their successors.

Trump, to be blunt, is the farthest thing I can think of as a statesman. He is a charlatan, a huckster, a phony, a fraud who’s sole interest is in clinging to power.

And the president-elect’s team is paying the price for Trump’s reluctance to do what he should do, which is concede he lost fairly and squarely.

I take plenty of comfort in knowing that Trump will be gone from my house — the White House — on Jan. 20. If only it could be the kind of seamless transfer that used to be the envy of the world.

national news

Where is POTUS? Hello?

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Donald J. Trump remains AWOL. He is MIA. He is hiding in plain sight, out there on the golf course in south Florida, hacking away at little white balls.

Meanwhile, the nation continues to fight what looks still like a losing battle against the unseen enemy, the virus that has killed more than 337,000 Americans.

I no longer expect anything from Donald Trump. He’s all but a goner.

Then again, I remain fixated on this nagging sense that he should be in the game. He should be barking out directives to his team of “the best people” on how he intends to facilitate delivery of the much-needed and long-awaited vaccine.

There remains no national strategy to wage war against a national enemy. Remember when Donald Trump called himself a “wartime president” and that he would conduct himself in such a manner while battling this disease? That turned out to be yet another promise unkept.

We are being briefed almost daily by President-elect Biden and members of his medical/science team. They will be taking over in just 22 days; they cannot pass soon enough, if you ask me. They haven’t suited up just yet.

Which brings me back to my point. We have one president at a time. The nation remains buried under the tragedy brought to us by this disease. Donald Trump has abdicated his responsibility as the leader of this nation by homing in matters that have everything to do with his political future and not a single freaking thing to do with you and me … and our health and well-being!

I’ve heard pundits pontificate about how we should ignore Trump that he’s no longer relevant to the national discussion. I do ignore the lies. I ignore the self-serving bloviating. I will not ignore any president — no matter how distasteful he is — when he has something important to say about a pandemic that continues to ravage the country we all love.

Dammit to hell anyway! Donald Trump took an oath to protect us. At the end of that oath, he said “so help me God.” The nation he pledged to protect is suffering.

Step up … Donald! Then in only 22 days you can just get the hell out of the way.

local news

Don’t commit treason, Mr. VPOTUS

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Allow me this brief leap of faith.

U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Nut House, is filing suit to demand that Vice President Mike Pence toss out the electoral votes that Joe Biden won in the presidential election and cast them instead for Donald Trump.

I do not believe Gohmert’s lawsuit will see the light of day. Nor do I believe that even if it did that Pence would follow the advice that the East Texas lunatic is suggesting.

On Jan. 6, the combined U.S. House and Senate will meet to ratify the Electoral College vote that has determined that Biden is the president-elect of the United States.

Gohmert is actually making a treasonous proposal by filing the lawsuit. It is astonishing, reprehensible, despicable, disgraceful and patently dangerous for Congress to even consider doing what Gohmert is demanding of the lame-duck vice president, and yet Gohmert has some fellow nut-job colleagues on the Republican side of the aisle who are willing to join him in this final act of idiocy.

To think, moreover, that the good folks of Gohmert’s East Texas congressional district continue to stand behind this goofball. They keep re-electing him every two years. Go … figure.

I’ll say it once more to VP Pence: Just do your job as the presiding officer of the joint congressional session, Mr. Vice President, and make the inevitable declaration that Joe Biden is the new president and that Kamala Harris is the new vice president.

Let’s then get back to actual governance and political sanity.

national news

POTUS-elect speaks to us … and for us

(AP Photo/Cliff Owen)

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

President-elect Joe Biden did it again.

At a time when the nation reels from a bizarre act of violence in a major city, the man who is set to become president spoke words that should be coming from the individual who’s already in the office.

A suicide bomber detonated an explosive device in downtown Nashville, Tenn., on Christmas Day. Police found his remains inside the recreational vehicle he used to carry the bomb. It’s a miracle there were no fatalities in the blast.

Where was Donald J. Trump? Hmm. Playing golf in Florida, more than likely. He hasn’t spoken publicly about the frightening event in Nashville.

President-elect Biden did speak to us today about what transpired. He offered his congratulations and thanks to local and federal authorities for the quick work they did in identifying the bomber.

Joe Biden makes FIRST comments on Nashville bombing – YouTube

What strikes me yet again, though, is that we are hearing from the man who hasn’t yet taken the presidential oath while the man who has taken the oath remains squirreled away in his glitzy south Florida resort. The silence from Mar-a-Lago is deafening.

A sense of compassion and empathy from the president has been missing for the past four years. President Biden will restore it. He will speak to us when the moment compels him to do so and he will speak to us in terms to which we can relate.

The role of Consoler in Chief is not written into the presidential job description. But it’s there to be carried out when moments present themselves. Granted, we suffered no loss of innocent life in Nashville, but a president who feels a community’s pain should be able and willing to speak to a nation whose citizens are demanding answers.

Donald Trump, as we have seen time and again for the past four years, simply is not wired that way. Joe Biden clearly has the compassion gene that Trump never received.

A nation that has been deprived of that presidential compassion should welcome it when it arrives in the form of President Biden.

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Do your duty, Mr. VPOTUS

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Vice President Mike Pence has one more critical job awaiting him before he leaves office.

He is scheduled — but not required — to preside over a joint session of Congress which on Jan. 6 is going to receive the Electoral College certified tally of the presidential election. It will tally up the votes cast by the electors and then Pence, according to custom, will declare that Joseph Biden and Kamala Harris have been elected president and vice president of the United States of America.

What does the VP do?

That’s easy from my vantage point. He presides over the outcome and makes the declaration on behalf of Congress and the Electoral College.

He is likely, though, to wonder if that’s the correct choice. Of course it is! However, he is likely then to incur the wrath of the man Biden defeated, Donald J. Trump, who continues to bully fellow Republicans to continue resisting the obvious outcome of the election. Trump is seeking to cling to power.

He has lined up a number of GOP loony birds who have swallowed the swill he is serving, that he actually won. To their great credit, some Rs in Congress are urging Trump to give up the fight.

One prominent Republican happens to be Mike Pence, who on Jan. 6 had better do what he must do. If he cannot make the declaration we all intend to hear, he should stand down, step aside and let the speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, make the call.

A small, but growing, part of me believes that VP Mike Pence will be AWOL when the moment arrives.

national news

Biden finally set to fulfill longtime ambition

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 BBy JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

It is no stretch at all to presume that Joe Biden has wanted to be elected president of the United States for a very long time.

He won election to the U.S. Senate in 1972 and for all I know he might have harbored presidential ambitions even as he took his Senate office at age 30.

He ran for president in 1988, but then fell out when he got caught plagiarizing speeches from a British politician. Biden tried again in 2008, but got buried early and pulled out … only to get a call from that year’s presidential nominee, Barack Hussein Obama, to run with him as vice president.

Now he has reached the pinnacle of political power.

It is times like this when I try to imagine how a normal human mind processes this marvelous achievement. Biden is facing roadblocks and assorted obstacles from the man he defeated in this year’s election. Donald Trump not only has failed to assure us of a peaceful transfer of power, he has delivered a transfer that is anything but the kind of peaceful transition the world usually looks on with awe and wonder.

However, the president-elect who at many levels likely has prepared himself for this moment is no doubt trying mightily to put the resistance aside as best he can. He is trying to cobble together a governmental executive team that will do his bidding and will work for the benefit of all Americans.

How does someone wired like Joe Biden process as well the notion that his many years as a senator and then as VP set him up to take on this task? I am left to wonder if he has doubts about whether he has dotted all the “i’s” and crossed all the “t’s.”

I have known about Joe Biden since he first became a U.S. senator. I was a young college student with a keen interest in politics. I watched him take office after enduring the tragic deaths of his wife and baby daughter in a car crash. I sort of kept an eye on him as he grew into the job. I watched him chair Senate confirmation hearings and listened to him debate opponents on the other side of the Senate chamber.

I was aware of Sen. Biden’s devotion to his sons, to his new wife and the little girl the two of them produced. I watched his first presidential campaign flame out and watched his embarrassment displayed before the land as he sought to explain how he could portray another man’s story as his own.

Somehow this fellow survived. He flourished. He got knocked down. He buried another child. And he steadied his feet under him.

Now he is about to ascend to the very top of the political summit. Not bad. Still, as I watch him I am left to wonder with all due amazement: How does one really prepare for what lies ahead as he becomes head of state and commander in chief of the world’s mightiest nation.

We are about to learn whether he has studied well.

local news

What does a ‘Biden fan’ look like?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Forgive me for revisiting briefly a blog item I posted about a message I received from someone who doesn’t like the fact that I, as a former Amarillo resident, continues to write about matters related to the Texas Panhandle.

This individual, who shall remain unidentified, wrote this:  Your writings about the Sod Poodles is (sic) trash. You don’t live here so you can stop writing about stuff here. I figured by the way you look you would be a Biden fan.

‘Trash,’ you say? Why, I never … | High Plains Blogger

I already have commented on the Sod Poodles reference in this guy’s note. However, he says that he “figured” I am a Joe Biden fan because of the way I “look.”

I’m trying to wrap my noggin around that one. One of my sons figures the guy was objecting mainly to my political leanings and used the Sod Poodles angle as a way to lend it some form of relevance. Hmm. Not a bad analysis. Hey, if my son is right, that means the guy reads the blog regularly. To which I should say “thanks for reading.” There. I just did.

I feel compelled to ask: What does a “Biden fan” look like? Do we all look the same? Are the 81 million-plus Bidenistas out there who voted for the president-elect wearing the same brand of clothes? Do we all drive the same kind of vehicle? FYI, I happen to drive a monster Dodge Ram pickup, three-quarter ton brute.

My correspondent stepped in it, if you want to know my opinion about that. It’s OK. I don’t know him and he damn sure doesn’t know me. I promise I’ll refrain from generalizing about someone who would write something so utterly pointless.

I just wanted to toss this little item out there. Maybe he’ll see it. Oh, dude … keep reading the blog.

national news

Tuberville making an a** of himself

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

U.S. Sen.-elect Tommy Tuberville, the Alabama Republican who exhibited a profound ignorance of government while campaigning for the office to which he was elected, seeks to make a dubious spectacle of himself even before he takes his seat in the next Congress.

Tuberville couldn’t identify the three branches of the federal government but managed to get elected this year because he is a Republican in a deeply Republican state. Now he wants to challenge President-elect Joe Biden’s victory over Donald Trump in the presidential election.

Tuberville is hinting broadly that he intends to challenge the result when Congress meets Jan. 6 to ratify the Electoral College’s certification of Biden’s clear and decisive victory.

Good news, though. Senate Republicans are resisting Tuberville’s goofy notion that the election is illegitimate because of phony allegations of voter fraud.

He has joined another Alabama nut job, Rep. Mo Brooks, in challenging the results. If they succeed, the House and Senate will have to stage two-hour debates before deciding to do what they must, which is to declare President-elect Biden the winner.

We are being disserved by this kind of idiocy in the halls of our elected Congress.

 

national news

Waiting for a ‘presidential’ president

(AP Photo/John Minchillo)

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

While the nation remains ensnared by the machinations of a president who cannot admit to losing an election, I find myself yearning for the moment the current president exits the stage and makes way for the guy who’s going to replace him.

At the crux of my yearning is a belief that the new fellow, Joseph Biden, will restore the term “presidential” to the office he inherits from Donald Trump.

You see, the sight of Trump continuing to insist that the election was an act of thievery performed by Biden and his  team is painful to the core. It shows the world that the United States of America, whose people like to think we live in an exceptional nation, is capable of behaving like a Third World banana republic. That is what Trump is providing the world: a glimpse into the dark side of politics and into the man that managed to get elected president of the United States.

He’s about to go away somewhere. Likely to Florida. He’ll play a lot of golf soon. He might form a new team  to plot a return to politics down the road. He’ll keep yammering about Biden, about the election, about whatever filters into his vacuous skull.

Through it all, we’ll get to watch a president actually act like the man who has walked into the world’s most visible and powerful office. Yes, a lot of it will be symbolic and not of much substance.

It will be important, though, to know that our president is in control of the situation and most of all in control of his own impulses. Joe Biden is going to become a “presidential” president.

I await that moment anxiously.