Tag Archives: Joe Biden

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Impeachment? Old news!

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

When the U.S. of Representatives impeached Donald Trump in late 2019, I was certain that we had just witnessed the rough draft of the first line of Trump’s obituary.

It would read: Donald Trump, the 45th president of the United States and the third president impeached by the House …

Silly me. I didn’t envision that the draft would be rewritten by what we are witnessing now in real time, which is the undermining by the defeated president of the Constitution he took an oath to defend and protect.

It now might read: Donald Trump, 45th president of the United States who sought to challenge the validity of a free and fair election that resulted in his defeat for re-election to a second term … 

How might that hold up? Well, I don’t know. We have another 60 or so days to go before President-elect Biden takes the oath as the nation’s 46th president. There’s still more time for Biden’s predecessor to something really foolish, reckless or maybe even illegal!

I am heartened by the reality that looms just down the road, which is that Joe Biden will become President Biden at noon on Jan. 20. There is nothing Trump can do to forestall that event from occurring. President Biden will take the oath, accept the congratulations from Chief Justice John Roberts, hug and kiss his wife, children and grandchildren; they all will take part in an inaugural parade.

Then the president will enter the Oval Office and get to work.

Trump, meanwhile, will recede into the background. He won’t be silent. He won’t go quietly. Trump will have played out all his limited number of options. He’ll be gone.

That obituary remains to be written. Indeed, I wish him a long post-presidency life. Donald Trump needs to hear and see how history will chronicle the mess he left for his successor to clean up and repair.

The impeachment we all endured seems so long ago. It has become old news, thanks to the tactics Trump is using to undermine our democratic process.

I don’t think it can get any more significant than that. Then again, we are dealing with a man who is capable of damn near anything to hold onto power.

More to come … aack!

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Hey, it could be worse

(DoD photo by Senior Master Sgt. Thomas Meneguin, U.S. Air Force/Released)

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Oh, the agony of watching this presidential transition wiggle and writhe as Donald Trump refuses to concede he lost the 2020 election to President-elect Biden.

Here’s some good news, folks: It’s going to end Jan. 20, when Biden takes the oath of office. Here’s some better news: The 20th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, enacted after the President Franklin Roosevelt’s election to his first term, moved the inaugural up from March 4.

Imagine this posturing dragging on for another several weeks, which could be the case were it not for the 20th Amendment being ratified in 1933.

President Herbert Hoover and FDR had such a poisonous relationship after the 1932 election that it illustrated the need to move the inaugural from March 4 to Jan. 20. The amendment was ratified on Jan. 23, 1933, which suggests that the momentum was building long before the Hoover-Roosevelt election.

I cannot imagine that hatred being any more toxic than what we’re witnessing these days. It was, I suppose.

I am just waiting now for Jan. 20 to come and go. We’ll get past this hideous display of presidential petulance.

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What happened to Rudy?

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I have been thinking of the tragedies that have emerged from Donald Trump’s term as president and I come up — so far — with just one tragic story.

It involves Rudy Giuliani, who’s now serving as Trump’s lead lawyer in the futile and feckless fight to overturn the results of the election Trump lost this month to President-elect Biden.

I mean, I have to collect myself a bit just to comprehend what has happened to the man who’s gone from hero to zero in the span of roughly two decades.

There he was, standing with President Bush after the 9/11 attacks on his city and the Pentagon. Giuliani served as NYC mayor. He became “America’s mayor.” Time magazine named him its person of the year in 2001 for the courage he demonstrated in helping his city  clean itself up after the wreckage that the terrorists delivered on that terrible day.

Before that the mayor served as a crime-fighting, mob-busting federal prosecutor.

I watch the videos of him from back in the post-9/11 era and wonder: What in the name of God in heaven happened to this guy?

He has devolved into a shill for Donald Trump. These days he is fomenting crazy and utterly stupid conspiracy theories about phony election fraud allegations. Did you saw him sweating during that presser this week, with hair dye dripping down both sides of his face? My goodness!

Rudy was ridiculous, citing a scene from “My Cousin Vinny” as evidence in a wacky conspiracy theory.

Well, you know all that. You know that America’s mayor has become America’s fool. I don’t know how you might feel about the deterioration of this once-stellar public servant. I will stand by my view that we are witnessing a tragedy in the making.

It saddens me beyond measure.

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Trump legacy? Shattered!

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(Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

This will come as no big surprise, but I have to get this off my chest.

Donald Trump’s legacy as president of the United States was — at best — destined to be a mixed, but mostly negative, compilation of historical fact.

Then came his losing bid for re-election. President-elect Biden is trying to form a government. He is being stymied and blocked at every level by Donald Trump.

The lame-duck president essentially had two courses he could have taken after losing the election.

He could have accepted the election result, offered a tepid “concession” and then released his team to assist in the transition. He could have kept his trap shut and gone out quietly.

He chose another course. He has alleged voter fraud where none exists. He has withheld presidential briefings from the new president and his national security team. Trump has withheld cooperation on the pandemic response, while hundreds of Americans continue to die each day. POTUS is meddling in states’ efforts to certify their election results, which already have told us that Biden won and Trump lost.

What is all this going to do to whatever legacy Donald Trump sought to leave behind? It will shatter it into a zillion pieces.

Trump is now going to be remembered as a joke, a fraud, a laughingstock, a hideous political aberration, a dangerous wannabe despot.

Nice going, Donald.

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Hoping to avoid head explosion

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

My head may be about to explode.

I am trying to wrap my noggin around what is continuing to unfold after President-elect Biden defeated Donald Trump in the 2020 election.

Trump is refusing to concede to Biden. He is withholding national security briefing material from the new team. Trump’s foot-dragging is stymying the president-elect’s transition team.

Worst of all, he is blocking efforts to enable the new team to prepare for how it plans to deal with the COVID pandemic that continues to kill hundreds of American every day.

I am at a loss as to how I am supposed to react to this. It is outrageous that Trump is doing this. It also outrageous that he seems to care not a damn bit that lives are going to be lost because of this astonishing, astounding, shameful refusal to accept the plain fact that Trump lost to Biden in a transparent, free and fair election. There was no “widespread voter fraud.”

Trump is preaching the Big Lie … delivering fake news!

He is committing arguably the most un-American act many of us have ever witnessed.

What’s more, we have plenty of shame to pass around.

Let’s start with congressional Republicans who continue to resist acknowledging President-elect Biden’s victory. Good God in heaven! they are even refusing to refer to him as “president-elect,” choosing instead to engage in some sort of verbal gymnastics. They have become cowed by a lame-duck president who is continuing to play to his cult of personality.

They, too, are engaging in a shameful display of cowardice the likes of which is utterly beyond my ability to comprehend.

I am struggling to hold onto my hope that Trump eventually will do what he must do, which is accept President-elect Biden’s victory and allow the transition to the new team to commence … at all levels!

It is getting more difficult with each passing day and each outrageous act by the Sore Loser in Chief.

I don’t want my head to explode.

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Once a ‘landslide,’ now it’s … something else?

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

President-elect Biden is closing in on an 80-million vote election victory. They’re still counting ballots, but the new president is about to cross an amazing threshold.

He’s already won an Electoral College victory, which all by itself puts him in the victor’s circle. Biden has 306 electoral votes; Donald Trump has 232 electoral votes.

Sound familiar? It should. Trump won in 2016 over Hillary Clinton by the same Electoral College margin. Four years ago, Trump called it a “landslide.” It wasn’t. Neither is the Biden victory over Trump this time. It is a substantial victory nonetheless, which I am certain just rankles Donald Trump to no end.

Too … bad, Donald.

But the actual vote is impressive. Biden has set a record for the number of ballots. Trump, too, has set a record for the most votes collected by the losing candidate. They’re both impressive totals.

One of them, though, is the winner. That would be Joe Biden.

It gives me reason to smile as they keep counting the ballots.

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Optimism taking a hit

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I am by nature an optimist. Really, it’s true!

Thus, I have sought to maintain an optimistic outlook as President-elect Biden seeks to form a government even while Donald Trump has refused to accept what we all know what occurred on Nov. 3.

Biden defeated Trump. His vote margin is approaching 6 million ballots. Biden’s electoral vote margin sits at 306-232. My hope has been all along that Biden could form a government and begin the task of “restoring our national soul” while unifying a badly divided nation.

Events of the past 10 days or so are testing my optimistic instincts.

Trump is fomenting the Big Lie that the election was rigged. It was nothing of the sort. Yet polling suggests that roughly 30 percent of American voters believe the lame-duck president’s ridiculous and dangerous assertion about “widespread” voter fraud.

This puts Biden’s mission of reunification in potentially dire peril. He pledges to be the president of “all Americans.” He said that “even if you voted for President Trump,” Biden will be your president, too. How can that be a bad thing? Did we hear such a proclamation from Donald Trump when he took office? He did pledge to unify the nation, but then embarked on a strategy that aimed to please only the base of supporters who have hung with him throughout his term.

I still am cautiously optimistic that the president-elect will be able to formally “transition” into the nation’s highest office. However, “cautiously” is becoming more important as I express my hope for that outcome.

Donald Trump’s petulance has grown into a dangerous gambit that threatens us at many levels. It is endangering a new president’s noble pledge to restore our national soul and bridge the partisan chasm that divides the nation he was elected to govern.

My optimistic nature is being strained. I hope the stress and strain doesn’t break it.

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Wanting a ‘normal’ and ‘boring’ POTUS

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I cannot in good conscience take credit for thinking of this, but I have no problem repeating it here.

I am waiting anxiously for a return to a “boring” U.S. presidency.

Donald Trump’s term has been fraught with anxiety at almost every level imaginable. What in the world is this guy going to say via Twitter? Who will he fire? What policy statement will be fire off without consulting with anyone other than his innards? Who is he going to pi** off with a reckless tweet?

Those days are soon to be behind us. President-elect Biden will become President Biden on Jan. 20 and soon — as in immediately — my hope is that we return to a normal presidency. One that includes sane political judgment based on same political discussion.

Whereas the current president came from the world of business where he was his own boss and didn’t answer to anyone, the new president comes from the world of government. That’s where the people — you and I — are the collective boss. We call the shots. We did so with the election, deciding we had enough of the turbulence, tumult and tempest that accompanied damn near everything that Donald Trump did.

I am so ready for a return to what we used to think of as “normal” behavior from our head of state.

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Revenge firings … that’s what they are!

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Donald John Trump has taken the “art” of revenge firing to a despicable new low.

The outgoing president of the United States decided to fire the man he hired to make our election more secure for — are you ready for this? — declaring that the 2020 presidential election is the safest and most secure in U.S. history.

What’s more, Department of Homeland Security official Christopher Krebs got word of his firing via Twitter, which is Trump’s modus operandi for issuing these policy pronouncements.

All Krebs did was issue a statement that runs diametrically counter to Trump’s narrative, which is that President-elect Biden won the election because it is “rigged.” Trump is hollering about “widespread voter fraud” where none exists. Krebs had the temerity to say as much in his statement to the world.

So now he’s gone. Trump has hired another lackey to take Krebs’s place … and the phony narrative will continue to fester on the public stage.

Hey, I realize I said I would concentrate on Joe Biden’s developing presidency rather than worry about what’s left of Trump’s term in office. I just cannot let this shameful example of vengeance go unnoticed. So there.

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Biden enters office with loads of credibility

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

President-elect Biden’s efforts to transition from private citizen to the highest public office in the nation has been difficult to watch from afar.

Donald Trump keeps trying to stymie his successor’s efforts to reach full speed on domestic, scientific and foreign policy matters.

However, I am going to take some comfort in the knowledge that Biden brings to the presidency owing to his nearly five decades in public service.

The president-elect served 36 years in the U.S. Senate before becoming vice president in 2009. During that time in the Senate he chaired the Foreign Relations and Judiciary committees for a total of 24 years. He built friendships and assorted professional and political relationships with hundreds of folks in this country and abroad.

Biden hasn’t yet received the kind of high-level briefing afforded customarily to presidents-elect, but he is able to reach beyond normal channels to experts from around the world for advice and  counsel.

The president-elect’s years of experience in public service will serve him well as he takes office, even if he is unable to obtain the kind of cooperation that outgoing president’s usually offer.

My hope springs eternal that eventually Donald Trump will put the country’s interests first and allow the transition to proceed as it should.

If that hope is never realized, I am going to believe that President-elect Joe Biden will be able to parlay his vast experience into an effective presidency … even as he struggles to get our new government up to speed.