Tag Archives: Joe Biden

national news

Can’t make the good-stuff pledge

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

The holiday season usually spurs me to make some sort of pledge to limit my commentary to just good stuff, positivity, to lay off the barbs, slings and arrows.

Not this year.

Yes, I am filled with sufficient Christmas spirit. My sons are nearby, along with my wife, our daughter-in-law, our granddaughter and her two brothers. We plan to have a quiet but still somewhat festive day to celebrate Christmas.

It will be more of a secular celebration of the holy day, although we certainly are cognizant of its spiritual meaning and the impact of Christmas on Christians. We honor the birth of Jesus Christ to be sure.

I cannot make the go-easy pledge for this blog. Not this year. We are in the midst of a horrible political transition, which is made that way by the conduct of the man who lost a presidential election. Donald Trump is erecting roadblocks to Joe Biden’s transition into the presidency. Why do that? Because Trump cannot stand the notion of being labeled a “loser.” Which he is. He lost the election, bigly.

So I intend to keep firing away at Donald Trump. I seek to keep a civil tongue — proverbially speaking, of course — as I criticize this individual’s conduct, but there are times when I am just unable to restrain myself.

I apologize in advance for any offense I might bring. Just understand that we are living in extraordinary times that require equally extraordinary analysis of what is occurring before our eyes.

It ain’t good. I intend to say so with all due vigor.

national news

POTUS-elect faces major repair work

(Photo by Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Joe Biden might be facing the biggest challenge ever to confront a newly sworn in president of the United States.

The wreckage being left by his immediate predecessor is mounting daily. Donald J. Trump is doling out pardons and commutations that have the nation scratching its head and many legal scholars are questioning the correctness of rewarding his friends, political allies and those who might have the goods on him.

This is occurring on top of the mess that Trump has made of the transition process. It was supposed to be a seamless transfer of power from one administration to another. It has been anything but seamless. Indeed, the seams are strained and torn as the president-elect seeks to build his governing team.

Donald Trump, indeed, is inflicting real and sustained damage to the democratic process that is supposed to govern us.

All is not lost, it needs to be stated, for the president-elect. Joe Biden has an important ally on his side as he takes office in less than a month. It’s the U.S. Constitution, which I continue to believe remains virtually indestructible, even in the face of the assault on it being mounted by the outgoing president.

Donald Trump remains committed to making his successor’s presidential life as miserable as he can possibly make it. Whether he succeeds in delivering that misery remains to be seen. My hope is that President-elect Biden’s vast governmental/public service experience will serve him well as he grasps the reins of power.

All that stated, his repair work looms as enormous.

I trust President Biden will be ready go on Day One.

national news

Ready for return of presidential symbolism

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

You can take this little item to the bank and remember that you saw it here for the first time.

President Biden will have a full plate of crises to confront when he settles in behind the Resolute Desk. He also must find time to engage in some of symbolism involved with the high office of president of the United States. Part of that involves conducting ceremonies; you know, the kind that honor Americans for the work they do on our behalf.

The nation’s highest civilian honor is called the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In the waning days of his time as vice president, Biden received the medal in a surprise ceremony at the White House. President Barack Obama stunned him during an event aimed ostensibly to honor the work that Biden had done as VP during the Obama administration.

Can there be a more fitting recipient for the Presidential Medal of Freedom than Barack Hussein Obama? And can there be a more fitting person to drape the medal around the former president’s neck than the current president, who after Jan. 20 will be Joseph Robinette Biden Jr.?

Obama has been vilified and ridiculed unjustly for the past four years by his immediate successor. I am one American patriot who would find it most appropriate for him to receive the nation’s highest civilian award to honor the work he did as a successful two-term president of the United States.

Just remember … you saw it here first.

education news

An ed secretary with knowledge of public schools!

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Imagine that, if you dare.

President-elect Joe Biden has presented to the nation a nominee for education secretary with actual knowledge, experience and appreciation for public education. Let this soak in for a moment.

Connecticut education commissioner Miguel Cardona is Biden’s pick to lead the U.S. Department of Education. Cardona would replace Betsy DeVos, who — to be charitable — knows nothing about the public school system she was nominated to lead in 2017.

Betsy DeVos for ed secretary? No way! | High Plains Blogger

DeVos was a do-nothing education secretary who was educated herself in private schools, who sent her own children to private schools and who has been a champion of the movement to take public money out of our public school system and directing it to private schools.

Cardona at the very least has hands-on experience as a public school student, as a public school educator and as head of a statewide public education system.

I welcome this nomination.

local news

Congressman answers question … sort of

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

My congressman stood on the correct side in a dispute between the Texas attorney general and the president-elect of the United States.

How do I know that? I asked his office directly and someone in his Plano office told me that Rep. Van Taylor was one of the Republican lawmakers who did not join a lawsuit filed by Ken Paxton, who sought to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

I applauded Taylor for keeping his distance from the litigious idiocy launched by our state’s attorney general.

Then I got a letter with Taylor’s signature at the end of it.

I’ll be candid. I read the letter and it sounded like a boiler-plate response that he sends out to anyone who asks his staff a question. He thanked me for “taking the time to contact me and share your thoughts regarding the 2020 Presidential Election. Our representative democracy works best with active participation from the people and I appreciate you sharing your thoughts with me.”

There you go. The rest of it reads like a statement that congressmen and women provide to deal with issues of the day.

Taylor again offered his congratulations to President-elect Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris. Taylor said he and his wife, Anne, are extending their “prayers and well wishes to both the Biden and Harris families as they prepare for this momentous undertaking.”

I want to thank the congressman — who was just re-elected to his second term from the Third Congressional District — for the letter. If only he had spoken to me a bit more directly.

Rep. Taylor noted the letter that former President George H.W. Bush left for the man who defeated him in 1992, President Bill Clinton. Bush told the new president: “Your success now is our country’s success. I am rooting hard for you.” Taylor added, “We must follow this example of putting political differences aside and upholding the integrity of the Constitution instead of the typical Washington dysfunction that has so many Texans frustrated.”

A final point: There is not a damn thing “typical” about the way Donald John Trump has conducted himself in the weeks since losing the election.

national news

Can Trump’s exit get any uglier? Uhh, yeah

REUTERS/James Glover II

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Donald John Trump’s exit from the presidency of the United States is getting uglier by the day.

I wish I could find a bottom to its ugliness. Sadly, I cannot locate it.

So many reports are coming out daily about Trump’s seeming disinterest in the nation’s actual existential crisis: the coronavirus pandemic that is killing thousands of Americans each day. He is obsessed with an election he lost and fixated on ways he could possibly remain in power.

Trump hates the term “loser,” except when he uses it to describe others. Now that he must wear the label himself, Trump has become some sort of monster in the White House. He convenes meetings that include a disgraced national security adviser who received a presidential pardon and a campaign lawyer who insists that Trump could seize voting machines in precincts that voted for President-elect Biden.

The Russians have hacked into our security network and Trump is silent, except to downplay its significance.

I don’t fear necessarily for the future of our democratic system of  government. It will survive this maelstrom of misery and mayhem. However, it is going to require some repair from the new president and his team. To that end, my hope is that President Biden deploys his vast knowledge of government and its workings to set about restoring the regular channels of communication and retooling government’s machinery.

I guess my deepest concern at this moment, as Trump’s term as president staggers to a close, is the prospect of the commander in chief doing something profoundly foolish and reckless intending to take our attention away from the Russian hacking operation. That would be for Trump to start an armed conflict, thrusting young Americans into harm’s way.

Is that beyond the capacity of a president who appears fixated solely on holding onto power? Absolutely not!

This is a dangerous man and this is a dangerous time.

We have 30 days to go before sanity returns to the Oval Office. I am holding my breath.

legal news

Barr breaks with POTUS

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

U.S. Attorney General William Barr is about to step away from public life, but before he goes he is dealing Donald J. Trump a punch in the gut.

To which I say: It is about damn time!

Barr today declared — two days before he departs the Justice Department — that there is no need for a special counsel to investigate alleged election fraud; nor is there a need to investigate the dealings of Hunter Biden, the son of President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.

The gut punch occurs because Trump believes there is a need for a special counsel to look at both matters. Barr, who has been criticized roundly — and with justification — for his fealty to the president, is putting the finishing touches on his Justice Department career by telling us the truth about this bogus special counsel demand.

One is that there is no widespread voter fraud of the type Trump has alleged. Two is that the Hunter Biden matter is being handled responsibly by U.S. prosecutors in Delaware.

As NBC News has reported: “I see no basis now for seizing machines by the federal government — wholesale seizure of machines by the federal government,” he said, adding that he stood by his statement there was no widespread fraud that would affect the outcome of the presidential election.

I expect the Twitter tirade from Donald Trump to be forthcoming.

national news, Uncategorized

POTUS has gone mad

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

The headline over The Atlantic story says it clearly.

“Trump Is Losing His Mind.”

If we are to believe the New York Times story — and I do believe it — then we now know that Donald Trump has discussed openly the idea of imposing martial law as a way to overturn the results of a free and fair presidential election.

It was an election he lost fair and square to President-elect Joe Biden.

Furthermore, he has considered hiring disgraced lawyer Sidney Powell to serve as special counsel to look directly into the election results. Oh, and there’s more: He brought in his former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, who Trump pardoned for crimes relating to his lying to the FBI over testimony he gave regarding his connection with Russian operatives who attacked our electoral system in 2016.

This came forward after a White House meeting. The NY Times reported it. Trump, of course, calls it “fake news.”

However, I am going to believe the reporting done by the Times. I also am going to endorse the headline atop The Atlantic story.

Donald Trump’s obsession with clinging to power has created a patently dangerous episode within the walls of the White House.

We have to keep our eyes on this guy.

national news

Biden’s Senate knowledge will serve us well

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

President-elect Joe Biden’s lengthy government service and experience are well-known to us all.

I happen to believe that the experience Biden brings to the presidency well might be the greatest asset he can deploy as he tries to repair the damage that Donald Trump has done to the institutions of government.

The president-elect spent 36 years in the Senate before being elected vice president in 2008. During his decades on Capitol Hill and in the White House, Biden developed a reputation as someone with extraordinary bipartisan relationships. He got along well with Republicans as well as with Democrats.

That government experience stands as a major selling point for electing him president over an incumbent who came to government via the business world and who never grasped the complexities of the federal government machinery.

Biden does not need any schooling on how the system works.

He will inherit a government in trouble. The nation is in trouble. We are battling a killer pandemic, which has caused an economic collapse the likes of which none of us has seen. The president is required at this juncture to be able to juggle many balls at once. Biden appears well-equipped — along with the team he is assembling — of doing what needs to be done.

Will it work? Will the policies he intends to implement do the job? That remains an open question.

However, I intend to place a good measure of faith in the ability of the new president to look for the right buttons to push.

national news

POTUS-elect: better man than most

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

President-elect Biden is a far better man than I am.

Someone shoved a microphone in his face the other day to ask him to react to Sen. Mitch McConnell’s belated recognition that Biden, indeed, is the president-elect.

Biden’s response caught me by surprise. He said he had spoken with the Senate majority leader and thanked him for his congratulations … and then pledged to work closely with him on areas where the two men can find agreement.

What might my reaction be? It wouldn’t be nearly as magnanimous. For that matter, Donald Trump damn sure wouldn’t have been as gracious had he been the target of the well-chronicled suspicion that GOP politicians have leveled at the Democratic president-elect.

McConnell stood behind some phony excuse about letting the “process play out” before recognizing the obvious, which is that Joe Biden defeated Trump in the Nov. 3 election. After the Electoral College certified Biden’s win, only then did McConnell speak from the Senate floor to congratulate the president-elect.

Fiddlesticks, man!