Tag Archives: Donald Trump

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

Hey, Mr. POTUS … just stay in Florida

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Mr. President, this is likely the final blog entry I will direct to you, but I have something I want to get off my chest.

I get that you and the first lady are in Florida enjoying the Christmas season. Good deal, but here is what I want to ask you: Why don’t you just stay there and not bother returning to the White House? 

You have left a mess in Washington. The COVID relief bill contains some help for Americans who need it; it also funds the military; it also keeps the government running. Yet you say you won’t sign it. You screwed this up royally with your surprise reversal after your team negotiated the deal that ended up on your desk.

The chaos we all predicted would be the lowlight of your tenure as president is coming home to roost. Thanks to you!

So, just stay away from Washington. You don’t do any work there anyway, other than concoct traitorous methods to overturn an election that you lost handily. Just don’t bother darkening the door of our house, OK?

Hey, just stay near a phone. Someone can call you in case an emergency arises. You’re still the president until Jan. 20. Just remain available to make a decision that only you can make. Movers can pack up your stuff and send it to you and the first lady. They’ll know where to find you.

Beyond that, we don’t need you any longer. President Biden will be ready to step in when he takes his oath of office. What’s more, he is certain to honor the oath, which you have failed miserably to do.

I’ve had enough of you in my house. Stay away.

Merry Christmas … numbskull.

national news

Waiting for it to hit the fan

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Oh, my.

The fecal matter is likely to hit the fan. Donald Trump has jetted off to Mar-a-Lago to spend Christmas with his wife and children and, presumably, his grandkids.

You know what? He might not return to the White House after the holiday. That doesn’t bother me in the least. I don’t want him in there in the first place.

He is issuing pardons like there’s no tomorrow. Indeed, as far as the presidency is concerned, there are damn few of them awaiting Trump.

I’m not waiting for him to pardon his sons, his daughter, his son-in-law and maybe even himself. Were he to do that he would engrave his presidential legacy with the words: “Most Corrupt Man Ever Elected to the Nation’s Highest Office.” 

legal news

Trump butchers rule of law

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Call me surprised, but not that Donald Trump would enact a scorched-Earth policy on his way out the door of the White House.

I am surprised at the brazenness of it all. Do I fear permanent damage to our democratic form of government. Not just yet, but the A**hole in Chief isn’t done yet.

The pardons he issued this week apparently portend more to come. Of all the pardons and commutations he has delivered, the set of them that gives me chills and fills me with the most rage involves the four convicted killers who worked as defense contractors in Iraq. Trump’s action on their behalf should give all of us serious cause for fear.

These individuals were convicted after a meticulous and thorough prosecution conducted by the Justice Department into reports that they opened fire on innocent civilians in Iraq. Their victims included women and children.

They are killers. They were serving time in federal prison. No longer. They now are free from their much-deserved bondage because the Crook in Chief doesn’t respect the rule of law. He has acted with utter ignorance of the pardon and commutation process and the protocol that served Justice Department officials well since the beginning of our republic.

How in the name of human decency can this man, Trump, live with himself. Oh, I forgot! He is shameless. Trump has no sense of what is just and fair.

I suppose no one should be shocked at what Trump has done on his way out of office. Some of us — such as me — noted long ago that this loon’s pre-politics background was geared toward one goal: self-enrichment. Public service remains to this very day a foreign concept to this individual. The pardons he dished out this week illustrate that cold and hard reality in stark and frightening terms.

I am going to make this point while realizing I likely am spitting into the wind. It is that Republicans in Congress — in the Senate and the House — need to stand up against the guy who lost a presidential election. He is about to leave office. Donald Trump must not be allowed to continue trashing the rule of law.

To think, too, that this was the moron who campaigned for re-election as a “law and order president.”

This individual is a disgrace.

national news

Trump goes ballistic … but why now?

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Do I have this right?

Didn’t the White House negotiate with congressional leaders on the nuts and bolts of a COVID-19 relief package and spending bill? Did they act with Donald Trump’s imprimatur? Or didn’t they?

And where was Donald Trump his own self during all of this back and forth over the course of several months?

Didn’t Trump say once or maybe twice that he would sign the bill when it arrived at his desk?

So, what the hell is happening now? Trump says Congress needs to clean up the legislation, provide $2,000 payments per person and get rid of unnecessary add-ons before he would sign it.

At one level, I don’t really disagree with what Trump wants. I do disagree, though, with the timing of it and the appearance of his demand. His negotiating team hammered out the particulars and now Trump says he opposed to it.

His refusal to sign it now puts the whole process in dire peril. He is threatening to shut down the government. Folks who need the help won’t get it. The COVID pandemic is raging on and on. Trump is doing nothing to speak to the issues relating to the virus.

What the hell is going on? Chaos, anyone?

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

An abuse of power? Yes, most certainly

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I won’t dignify the individuals who tonight received a presidential pardon from Donald Trump by printing their names here.

They are four contractors who, while working in Iraq during a war, committed war crimes by killing men, women and children. They were tried extensively by federal officials. They were convicted of those crimes and sentenced to prison.

Donald Trump today pardoned them, set them free in exercising his full presidential pardon power as prescribed in the U.S. Constitution. I don’t question that Trump has the power to exercise that provision. I do question why he would pardon four men who were convicted of murdering innocent victims.

We have just witnessed a supreme abuse of power. Donald Trump, I dare say, has committed what could be considered an impeachable offense. It is sickening in the extreme.

We have 29 days to go before this madman leaves office. My goodness. Donald Trump is an evil despot.

Just think of the hideous miscarriages of justice that could be offered up prior to Trump’s departure from the Oval office.

national news

Trump does what? Threatens COVID relief package?

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Donald J. Trump’s threat to derail a long-awaited, long-debated COVID-19 relief package might be worthy of praise … except for this little factoid.

Trump took no part, none at all, he was AWOL during Congress’s agonizing debate over how to help Americans affected by the coronavirus pandemic.

Now he has a bill on his desk. It was approved by rousing bipartisan majorities in both congressional chambers. Trump’s reaction has been to withhold his signature from a $1.4 trillion spending package that offers $900 billion in COVID relief; the bill includes $600 stimulus checks to be sent to Americans who qualify.

Trump wants more money sent to Americans. He calls the package a “disgrace.”

What? Wait a minute! Where was Trump during the negotiations? He didn’t call legislative leaders. He didn’t pressure anyone to craft a bill to his liking. He was nowhere to be seen or heard — except when he was yammering about an election he lost!

Heads up, congressional Republicans: Aren’t you glad you stood with this clown, the guy who has just threatened to put your political future in dire jeopardy?

local news

Lame-duck lawmaker blasts … Trump

(Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Now he speaks out,

U.S. Rep. Mac Thornberry, who rose to the ranks of one of his party’s top lawmaking leaders, had remained virtually silent about the conduct of Donald J. Trump.

Then he announced his retirement from Congress, where he served since 1995. What do you suppose happened to the Clarendon, Texas, Republican? He found his, um, voice.

He has needled his fellow GOP colleagues for following a “mindless sort of obedience” to the lame-duck president. He says their blind fealty “undermines our institutions.” Well, yeah!

Thornberry told the Dallas Morning News that “Congress was created to be and meant to be a separate branch of government — not one in which its members take their direction from a president of either party.”

Thornberry also had some choice words for Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and the 126 GOP members who joined him in a loony lawsuit filed in the U.S. Supreme Court. The suit sought to nullify millions of votes that went to President-elect Biden. Paxton had no standing or right to intercede in other states’ electoral processes, the court ruled. Thornberry agreed, saying that had Paxton had succeeded there could be no end to the type of mischief that other states could do to Texas’s own electoral system.

Suffice to say that Thornberry did not his colleagues’ effort to climb aboard the Paxton clown car.

I appreciate Thornberry’s newfound candor. He was my congressman for more than two decades when I lived and worked in Amarillo. I had a fruitful professional relationship with him and I wish him well as he charts a new course in his life.

I just wish he had revealed his candor a whole lot earlier.

medical news, science news

And now … a good word about Operation Warp Speed

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Admittedly, this blog has spent a great deal of time, emotional energy and cyberspace over the past four years bashing, slashing and smashing at the Donald J. Trump administration.

Trump is about to exit the political stage in less than 30 days. I now want to say a good word about what — in a normal world — should stand as an enduring legacy to his term in office.

This isn’t a normal world. Operation Warp Speed is a creation of someone within the White House to define the mission of finding a vaccine for the coronavirus that has killed more than 300,000 Americans and nearly 2 million people around the world.

The COVID-19 virus arrived early this year. Trump dragged his feet in recognizing publicly the peril it posed. Then he owned up to its consequence. He also announced the strategy he said would expedite the research and development of a vaccine that could cure the world of the pandemic.

Trump predicted during his failed re-election campaign that we could have a vaccine by the end of the year. Skeptics scoffed. I don’t recall speaking directly to Trump’s boast, but it did ring a bit hollow. Others in the White House task force formed to come up with a response strategy said it would take longer.

Well, guess what. Donald Trump was right. Pfizer and Moderna have produced highly efficient vaccines that are now being administered around the world. A third pharmaceutical firm, AstraZeneca, is about to bring a vaccine on line.

There is plenty of debate about the impact that Operation Warp Speed had in delivering these vaccines. Some experts say the drug firms were well on the way to producing it already; others give Warp Speed a ton of credit for goosing the companies to delivering the goods in a timely fashion.

I am willing to dole out praise to Donald Trump for providing some of the impetus to get this vaccine developed and approved. But not all of it. Indeed, I am weary beyond belief of hearing Trump take undue credit for work that others did.

Drug company researchers and scientists worked their butts off to produce a vaccine with an efficacy level that experts have called “extraordinary.” Yet there was Trump the other day stepping into the limelight to say that no other politician in human history could have produced those kinds of results.

Mr. President, the program that came to be under your watch has done well. Accept the congratulations that belong mostly to the researchers … and then get the hell out of the way.