Tag Archives: Joe Biden

local news

There you go, Rep. Taylor; that wasn’t so hard … was it?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

“Our Constitution defines the process for electing the president. Today, the Electoral College voted and on January 20th, President-elect Joe Biden will be sworn in as the 46th President of the United States. Anne and I extend our prayers and well wishes to the Biden and Harris families as they prepare for this momentous undertaking.”

— U.S. Rep. Van Taylor of Plano

There you have it. A freshman Republican congressman from the Metroplex has signed on to the notion that, by golly, Joseph R. Biden is going to take office as the next president of the United States.

Van Taylor happens to represent me in the U.S. House of Representatives. What astounds me at this moment in our nation’s history is that the media and other observers even have to ask members of Congress such an elementary question.

Taylor responded to a question from the Texas Tribune to our state’s entire congressional delegation: Do you accept Joe Biden as the president-elect?

Not all of the GOP-dominated delegation answered the question, which is their way of saying “no.” Taylor said “yes.” For that I am grateful and pleased.

As for the non-responders, which include Sen. Ted Cruz and the loony bin rep from East Texas, Louie Gohmert, I have nothing more to say other than this: Shame on you and shame on those who believe the bullsh** being fomented by Donald J. Trump about the legitimacy of Joe Biden’s election as president!

They have disgraced the beloved state and the nation they took an oath to serve.

national news

Trump is shrinking before our eyes

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

The more complaints that Donald Trump throws out there regarding the presidential election, the smaller, more venal, more petty and less presidential, undemocratic and unpatriotic he sounds.

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell publicly — finally! — accepted President-elect Biden’s election on Nov. 3. It’s not that McConnell deserves high praise for doing what he should have done long ago.

It is that Trump now has blasted McConnell — one of his staunchest allies in the Senate — for, um, speaking the truth! It is that the Electoral College has certified Biden’s victory and that McConnell now is ready to say aloud what he likely knew all along in private … which is that Joe Biden is going to move into the White House on Jan. 20 and that Donald Trump will become a private citizen.

What shouldn’t be a surprise is that Trump fears the truth. Which might explain why he cannot tell us the truth. Not ever!

I am just puzzled at how Trump continues to look at himself in the mirror and ignore what many millions of Americans know already: that Trump is a petty, petulant narcissist who is inflicting real damage on the institutions of government he took an oath to defend and protect.

national news

Turning the page already

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Just as President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. urged us earlier this week to “turn the page,” I am happy to report that I am beginning that process already in my own head and heart.

Biden’s comment came after the Electoral College certified his victory on Nov. 3 over Donald J. Trump. The states’ electors gathered in their respective capitals and cast their votes. Biden got 306 electoral votes; Trump earned 232 of them.

Game over. No more challenges to file. No more court battles to wage. No more insistence that the election was “rigged.”

It’s time to turn the page, as the next president urged us.

I have said already that I intend to look more toward the future than to the past. That doesn’t mean I will ignore the rants coming from Donald Trump. It means only that my focus will be more toward what I hope will be a fresh start with the incoming presidential administration.

I am turning the page. Perhaps it’s a bit slow to turn, but it’s turning. Time to move on and for the new president to get to work. Joe Biden has quite a bit of damage to repair.

national news

No ‘war’ on Christmas

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Of all the phony, ridiculous and bogus campaign pledges that Donald J. Trump made on  his way to the White House, the one that sticks in my craw is his promise to restore the greeting “Merry Christmas” to our vernacular.

You recall that, right? Donald Trump fomented the phony conservative mantra that liberals/progressives were in cahoots with non-Christians to declare war on Christmas. He castigated business owners for requiring their employees to wish their customers a “happy holiday” after taking their money. I believe he actually promised to “make them” order their employees to offer Christmas greetings.

Stupid, yes? Yes! It is!

OK, so now Trump is about to leave office. We have to endure one more Christmas season with The Donald in the White House. Then it will be Joe and Jill Biden taking up residence in our house. They will populate the place with their children and grandchildren, along with a couple of rescue pooches and a cat.

And they will bring plenty of Christmas cheer with them.

What I do not expect President Biden to do will be to make a phony declaration of war against those who have sought a more expansive view of the holiday season than just what Christians around the world celebrate.

I want to make a quick point of personal privilege.

I celebrate Christmas with all its trappings. I celebrate its secular meaning as well as its spiritual significance. I grew up in the Orthodox Church and became a Presbyterian when I got married nearly 50 years ago. However, all that said, I never, ever have taken offense to someone wishing me a “happy holiday.” Indeed, I long have understood that the individual extending that greeting likely doesn’t know a thing about me or my background; he or she doesn’t know if I am a Christian, a Jew, a Muslim, a Buddhist or a Wiccan.

So, when I hear politicians throw out the kind of political bull crap that Donald Trump did four years ago while he campaigned for president, I take it all for what it’s worth.

Which is … not a damn thing!

national news

By all means, let’s ‘turn the page’

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

President-elect Biden’s speech to the nation Monday was full of the expected rhetoric from the man who is about to assume the most exalted office in the land, if not the world.

One of his pronouncements was that it is “time to turn the page” from the past and to “unite” and “heal” a nation torn apart by political division and hatred.

Yeah. Do ya think? 

In reality it has been “time” to do all of that for years. I don’t dismiss the president-elect’s call. I do wonder whether it will resonate now any more than it has in the past as others across the land have urged an end to the bitter divide.

My hope springs eternal that it could mean more coming from the new president who is taking over from the most divisive, angry, ego-maniacal man ever to hold the office. I am going to lay the vast bulk of the blame for the division we are feeling at the feet of Donald J. Trump. No surprise there, I suppose.

Trump has erected a gigantic barrier between the new president and the people he will govern. To what end remains a mystery to me.

So, yes, it is time to “turn the page.” It’s time to turn many pages and slam the book shut on the era we are about to exit.

national news

Way to go, Mitch … hah!

(AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

The temptation surfaced but it was a fleeting moment.

I was tempted to offer a “better late than never” congratulatory statement to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for finally recognizing that his former colleague, Joe Biden, is the president-elect of the United States. McConnell this morning congratulated the president-elect and said he is looking forward to working with him on his agenda.

Then the temptation floated away.

I am left now to heap more shame on the Senate majority leader simply because he did something today he could have done — he should have done — weeks ago.

McConnell knew along with the rest of us that Donald Trump’s efforts to subvert the democratic process were damaging to the republic, to the rule of law, to our very governmental foundation. Yet he remained silent … until the Electoral College cast its vote Monday to certify that President-elect Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris about to ascend to the pinnacle of power.

So, McConnell hid behind the formality of the vote until it was done and then he came forward this morning to state the obvious.

Sen. McConnell has demonstrated a disgraceful display of cowardice.

But it doesn’t matter what I think. The person whose opinion matters is President-elect Biden. Since he is a better man than many of us I am relatively certain Joe Biden is able to put the hard feelings he might harbor toward his former Senate pal aside and get to work on behalf of the nation he was elected to lead.

national news

Trump elevates our awareness

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Let us be clear headed and focused now on what we must do as a nation.

We have elected a new president and vice president of the United States. Today we witnessed in real time as the Electoral College certified the victory earned by President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris. Normally, this day would have come and gone and no one would have noticed.

Except that this year, thanks to the shenanigans launched by the man Biden defeated — Donald J. Trump — this constitutional duty came into sharp focus. You know what? That’s a good thing! It is good that Americans who take this process for granted now understand with a good bit more clarity how the framers set up this democratic system of ours.

I detest the shenanigans that Trump has sought to pull off. There has been a significant upside, though, if you consider that Americans are paying a good bit more attention to the democratic process.

Let me be clear on this point, too: The Electoral College actually worked damn well, unlike what happened in 2016 when Trump won the electoral vote majority while losing the actual vote to Hillary Clinton. This year, the president-elect’s Electoral College majority and his actual vote majority seem to mirror each other. I won’t call his victory a “landslide,” even though he rang up the same electoral vote total that Trump did four years ago. His victory, though, is significant.

We watched it play out. We paid attention to it. Under normal conditions, we wouldn’t have celebrated this certification the way many of us are doing. There ain’t anything normal about Donald Trump, which he has demonstrated repeatedly since the moment he became a politician.

So you see? Trump’s antics have produced something constructive: an appreciation of our great democratic process!

national news

It’s over, Donald … Donald?

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Cue the Fat Lady.

She’s the one who sings when the party — or in this case,  the fight to hold onto power — is over.

The Electoral College today cast more than enough votes to elect Joe Biden as the nation’s next president. As I write this brief post, Hawaii has yet to meet, but that state’s four electoral votes will go to the president-elect.

What now for the current president? He says he’ll keep mounting legal challenges. Well, there ain’t any left.

Oh, then there’s this: Attorney General William Barr, about five minutes after President-elect Biden secured enough votes to be elected by the Electoral College, turned his resignation. He’s quitting effective Dec. 23. I am sure he will have a wonderful, joyous Christmas.

I am going to listen for the faint tunes of the Fat Lady. She’s singing in anticipation of the next president taking office.

Oh, yes … she sounds so sweet to me.

national news

Petulance becomes even more petty

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

The longer Donald Trump continues his futile, feckless and reckless attack on the American democratic process the more petty he becomes.

The president of the United States is shrinking before our eyes.

The Electoral College voted today and certified Joseph R. Biden Jr. as the 46th president of the United States. Trump, meanwhile, is tweeting messages about how he has just begun to fight.

For what? For an office that is now officially out of reach?

The U.S. Constitution lays it out there. It is spelled out in the written word. The Electoral College determines who sits in president’s office. It won’t be Donald Trump after Jan. 20.

So the defeated president might continue to bluster and blather about alleged election thievery. It didn’t happen. Deep down in his gut Trump knows it, too.

It’s the  uncertainty of what might await him once he no longer is shielded by the trappings of immense power that seems to be driving this petty petulance.

It’s over, Mr. POTUS. Pack your bags and hit the road … for keeps.

national news

Biden transition needs to function on all cylinders

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(Photo by Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Oh, to be a fly on whatever walls surrounding the meetings that President-elect Biden is conducting as he prepares to become the next president.

The transition has begun officially. It was late getting started. Donald Trump, who lost the election to Joe Biden, dug in for too long after we learned that we had a new president waiting in the wings.

Then came the order from the General Services Administration, the agency that runs the transition: Start turning the wheels, the GSA said … undoubtedly on orders from Donald Trump.

I am heartened somewhat — but not totally — by the knowledge that President-elect Biden is a man of the Senate, that he knows how government works, that he has an enormous network of contacts throughout the legislative and executive branches of government.

Biden comes to the presidency being able to speak fluently in the language that bureaucrats speak to each other. There appears to be little on-the-job training for the new president. He served 36 years in the Senate, eight as vice president. He knows the ropes.

Contrast that with the absence of any exposure to government that Donald Trump brought to the job he inherited when he was elected in 2016. It showed from the get-go.

I do not expect the new president to make the kind of monumental hiring mistakes that Trump made. I could be wrong, of course. Indeed, I am wrong way more than I am right.

On this matter … I’ll stick with my assessment of the new president.