Tag Archives: FDR

national news

POTUS 45 wants a ‘third term’?

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POTUS No. 45 says he would like to hold the presidency for three terms. He said that? Oh, wait. He must’ve been “sarcastic.”

That cannot happen without amending the U.S. Constitution.

The 22nd Amendment limits presidents to two elected terms. The former Liar in Chief won election in 2016. He got defeated in 2020. He could — God forbid! — win it again this year.

That’s two terms, dude. You’re out after that.

I suppose he wants a third term. Maybe even a fourth.

C’mon.

The 22nd Amendment was ratified in 1951 after President Franklin D. Roosevelt won election to four terms; FDR died about a month after taking office for his fourth term in April 1945. Congressional Republicans had become alarmed at what they feared might become an “imperial presidency.” So, the GOP pushed the 22nd Amendment through.

Most of us know these days about the grandeur that No. 45 seeks, what with declarations about becoming a “dictator” for one day. He expresses admiration for dictators around the world. He wants to be one of them, I reckon.

However, our Constitution prohibits such nonsense from actually occurring. No., 45 needs to read the document. Oh, wait! He doesn’t read anything!

national news

Mrs. Carter walked rare path

Much has been stated and written in recent days about how Rosalynn Carter “redefined” the role of first lady.

How she offered policy advice to her husband, President Jimmy Carter. How she kept an active office in the East Wing of the White House. How she was never afraid to tell the president where he messed up.

Was her role unprecedented? Not really.

Plenty of first ladies who followed her into the White House have demonstrated the same level of political moxie. Nancy Reagan and Hillary Clinton come to mind. Remember how Mrs. Clinton went immediately from being first lady to the U.S. Senate, where she served from 2001 until Barack Obama tapped her to become secretary of state in 2009.

Prior to Rosalynn Carter, though, two first ladies stand out as being more than just White House window dressing.

Eleanor Roosevelt is one. She sat at President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s right hand during his three terms in office; yes, FDR was elected four times as POTUS, but he died only a month into his fourth term. She clearly offered policy advice and later would become U.S. ambassador to the United Nations in the Kennedy administration.

Another first lady? Edith Wilson. She married President Woodrow Wilson in 1915 after his first wife died. In 1919, President Wilson suffered a severe stroke that left him partially paralyzed and unable to perform his presidential duties. Edith Wilson took over many of his responsibilities, screening his visitors, correspondence, and documents.

Mrs. Wilson served as a shadow president, conducting matters of statecraft even though her husband remained alive, but unable to do his job.

I don’t recall a time during the Carter administration, which ran from 1977 until 1981, when Mrs. Carter’s policies actually were seen as dominant. Media reporting on her role as a key adviser, if memory serves, was fairly discreet, although it clearly was reported to the public that Rosalynn Carter played a role in shaping many of her husband’s policy decisions.

Of course, that role bent some D.C. noses out of shape. Some “traditionalists” seemed to believe that first ladies needed only to plan White House meals and organize events such as the annual Easter egg hunt.

The way I saw it then was: Any president needs an adviser who can tell him the unvarnished truth and speak candidly when he messes up. That President Carter was married to that individual only made her role more effective.

Rosalynn Carter was an extraordinary woman who carved out a special place in our nation’s glorious presidential history.

She is at peace now. God bless her.

local news

Oh, how she loved this land

The lady you see in this picture passed away 45 years ago on this very day; therefore, I want to take this opportunity to salute her while honoring the birth of the nation she loved with all her heart.

She was my maternal grandmother. Her given name was Diamondoula Panesoy. She married my grandfather after being betrothed to him for many years. This intrepid Greek woman made a harrowing journey from Marmara, Turkey, to the United States, boarded a train from New York City to Portland, Ore., and got married.

They produced three children, one of whom was my mother. The kids you see in this picture with our Yiayia are my sisters and me.

She chose to become an American, which to my way of thinking makes her an exceptional citizen of this great land. Yiayia — which is Greek for grandma — would repeatedly brush off suggestions that she return to “the old country” to visit, to see her “homeland.” She would answer, “But I am ‘home,’ where I belong.”

She never looked back once she left southeastern Europe.

Yiayia died on July 4, 1978. She had been battling many illnesses. My late wife, Kathy Anne, quipped not long after Yiayia’s passing that “She chose to die on this date just to make sure you would remember.”

Yiayia was without question a most memorable individual. Everyone knew her as “Yiayia.” That included the kids in her Southeast Portland neighborhood, the kids’ parents, the mailman, the milkman, the guys who picked up her trash, the clerks at the grocery store where Kathy Anne and I would take her on occasion.

Above all, she was a dedicated American citizen. She worshiped FDR and JFK. She always remembered to vote. As one of my uncles once noted, she probably was a closet socialist. She believed that government should help every American.

She made our nation better simply by being among its taxpaying, voting, red-blooded American citizens. Yiayia strengthened this strong land by loving it openly and without a hint of reservation.

So … this is my way of offering a heartfelt birthday wish to a great land, which opened its doors to a woman who — in my view — would become one of its greatest Americans.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

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.

national news

The ‘carnage,’ Mr. POTUS?

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Presidential inaugurals often produce  signature lines.

Franklin Roosevelt told us the “only thing we have to fear is fear itself”; John F. Kennedy implored the nation to “ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country”;  Gerald R. Ford — the nation’s only unelected president — told us “our long national nightmare is over.”

Donald John Trump’s signature line? “The American carnage stops right now.”

Well, dude, it hasn’t stopped. Yeah, he was referring to crime … but that hasn’t abated, either. The new “American carnage” came to us via the coronavirus pandemic. OK, he didn’t cause it. His dawdling, dithering and delay in acting initially to it has resulted in tens of thousands of more deaths than it otherwise might have produced had the president acted decisively at the front end of the pandemic.

But he didn’t.

Thus, the American carnage he vowed to stop only has worsened on his watch.

The pandemic continues to rampage across the land. It is producing greater rates of infection and death in many communities, all while the president continues to push state and local governments to speed up the reopening of the economy that has stalled because of the pandemic.

It ain’t working, Mr. President. I will just chalk this “American carnage will end” pledge to be another broken promise.

national news

How stirring, Mr. POTUS

A friend of mine posted this on Facebook, so I thought I would share it here.

This message comes to us from the 45th president of the United States, Donald John Trump. They just make you want to stand up and cheer … don’t they? Well, no!

  • President Abraham Lincoln stirred us in 1865 at his second presidential inaugural when he declared “with malice toward none and charity for all” he would seek to heal the wounds inflicted by the Civil War.
  • President Franklin Delano Roosevelt became president and in 1933 told us during the Great Depression that “the only thing we have to fear is … fear itself.”
  • President John F. Kennedy stood before the nation in 1961 and implored us to serve our country, that we should “ask not what our country can do for us but what we can do for our country.”
  • President Ronald Reagan stood at the Berlin Wall in 1987 and demanded that Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, if he intended to work toward creating a better world, to “tear down this wall.”

This president has reduced such soaring rhetoric to utter nonsense such as what he said this week about whether testing for the COVID-19 virus was helpful in stemming the rate of infection by the worldwide pandemic.

Yep, this is what we got when we elected this clown.

I am shaking my head in disgust.

military news, national news

Trump’s belittling of brass simply stinks beyond belief

The history of Donald Trump’s pre-business history is well-known.

He sought to avoid service in the military during the height of the Vietnam War. He received dubious medical deferments citing bone spurs or some such ailment that kept him out of being eligible for military service.

He went into business. Made a lot of money. Lost a lot of money. Had mixed success as a business mogul. Then he went into politics. He ran for president of the United States. He won!

So for this current president to dress down men who have served their country honorably, in combat, thrust themselves into harm’s way is insulting, degrading and astonishingly unpatriotic.

Two reporters for the Washington Post, Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig, have written a book that tells just how disgraceful Trump’s conduct has gotten with regard to the military high command. An excerpt from that book tells of a meeting in a Pentagon room called The Tank. The brass sought to explain the nuts and bolts of military matters to the commander in chief. He was having none of it.

He called the generals “babies and dopes.” He has told them they are “losers” and said he wouldn’t “go into battle” with them.

I am trying imagine, were I one of those decorated combat veterans, hearing such denigration coming from the commander in chief. The entire world knows this man’s history. We all know that, when he had the opportunity to serve his country, he chose another path.

Don’t misunderstand me on this score. I do not begrudge a president who’s never worn the nation’s military uniform. Two recent presidents did not serve: Barack Obama or Bill Clinton. Neither did Franklin Roosevelt or Woodrow Wilson, both of whom led this country through two world wars.

What is so objectionable is the snarky attitude this president demonstrates to individuals who have done what he sought to avoid doing. That he would speak to these patriots in such a manner is disgraceful on its face.

national news

Conspiracy theories live forever and ever

They will never die. Not ever. They will live far beyond all of our time on Earth. They’ll outlive my sons’ time, too.

What are “they”? Conspiracy theories! That’s what I’m talkin’ about!

Jeffrey Epstein’s death in the Manhattan, New York City jail cell has spawned ’em by the dozens. Already! You see, Epstein was supposed to stand trial after he pleaded not guilty to charges that he peddled young girls for sex.

Epstein had some high-powered friends. Two of them became “former friends” for reasons that aren’t exactly clear. Their names are Bill Clinton and Donald Trump. 

Now that Epstein is dead, the conspiracists have developed some hideous notions that Clinton might have been involved in killing him. Others have suggested Trump played a role in murdering Epstein.

These theories are going to take root. Their roots will run deep.

We’ve had our share of eternal conspiracy theories.

  • President Kennedy’s murder in Dallas couldn’t possibly have been committed by a lone rifleman.
  •  The 9/11 terrorist attacks were the work of those within the George W. Bush administration looking for reasons to go to war.
  •  President Barack Obama was born in Africa and was not qualified to run for the office to which he was elected twice.
  •  Those pictures from the moon’s surface were shot in a studio somewhere on Earth.
  •  Good grief, there are those who have suggested that President Roosevelt goaded the Japanese into attacking us at Pearl Harbor.

And so they have gone. They’ll go on forever.

Indeed, conspiracy theories already exist involving former President Clinton. They involve bogus allegations of people with dirt on the president and his wife ending up dead. Indeed, those phony rumors are thought to be the source of the latest defamatory rumors surrounding the death of the miserable pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

Are there questions that need answering? Surely, yes.

However, I believe I can predict today that no matter how thorough the explanation, or how much evidence they produce to back whatever conclusions they draw about Epstein’s death, there will be those who will purport to disbelieve what they see and hear.

They will trade on conspiracy theories. What’s worse is that there will be those who are willing to take the bait.

Disgusting.

International news

God bless President Truman

I have commented already on this blog about the significance that Aug. 6 has to the country and to me personally.

On that date in 1945, President Harry Truman issued an order that stands the test of time. He ordered a B-29 crew to take off from Tinian Island in the Pacific Ocean. It carried a single bomb.

The plane dropped that bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. The A-bomb killed about 70,000 people instantly. Three days later, another bomber would fly over Nagasaki, Japan, and would drop another bomb. It killed 50,000 people.

Five days after that, Japan surrendered. World War II had come to an end.

I long have saluted President Truman for having the courage to act as he did to bring that war to an end.

He became president after Franklin Roosevelt’s death in April 1945. World War II would rage in Europe until May 8. The Nazis surrendered as the Soviet Red Army marched into Berlin. The Japanese would continue the fight into the summer on the other side of planet. Truman knew a tiny bit about some New Mexico project that was developing a new kind of weapon. Then the Joint Chiefs briefed him, telling him, in effect, “Mr. President, we have this bomb that we believe can end this war quickly.”

My father was part of an occupation force in The Philippines that summer. He was preparing to take part in the invasion of Japan, were that operation were to commence. He had already seen plenty of combat in the Mediterranean Theater. Dad told me once he figured that more combat awaited him once the invasion of Japan commenced. He was a Navy boatswain’s mate. His shipboard duty required him to fire a deck gun in anger at enemy aircraft in the Med. More of that kind of duty likely awaited him.

But then the president ordered the dropping of those atomic bombs. The war ended quickly afterward.

I never have questioned for a moment the wisdom of President Truman’s decision or doubted the courage he demonstrated in issuing the order. Hey, I have some “skin in that game” … you know?

I mean, if Dad hadn’t survived, well, I wouldn’t be here today, writing this blog telling you about how grateful I am to have been given life.

I once told a veterans group in Amarillo about my personal connection to the events of Aug. 6 and 9, 1945. I told those vets, “God bless President Truman.”

They clapped and cheered.

I feel just as strongly today as I always have about the president’s decision to end that terrible conflict in the manner that he did.

national news

Trump ends radio addresses … does anyone care?

First, I will make an admission.

I rarely listened to a presidential radio speech as it was being broadcast. I do so maybe twice dating back to the Reagan administration (1981-89).

Presidents dating back to Franklin Roosevelt — who revived the tradition when he took office in 1933 — would record these messages to be broadcast across the country.

President George H.W. Bush didn’t follow up on President Reagan’s consistent delivery of the message. Then came Presidents Clinton, George W. Bush and Obama, all of whom were faithful to the habit of talking to Americans directly over the radio airwaves about policy matters.

Donald Trump, though, has tossed the practice aside. Are you surprised? Neither am I.

He relies on Twitter to announce policy decisions, usually with mangled syntax, misspelled words, lots of capitalization and extraneous punctuation.

I find it mildly distressing that Trump would discontinue the weekly radio speechmaking. After all, they have been known to make a bit of news. Media report on what the president says and on occasion they might say something newsworthy enough to make us sit up and pay careful attention.

Trump sees, I’ll presume, as a waste of time. Probably like those daily presidential national security briefings he once told us he didn’t need to hear. He asked, rhetorically, “What’s the point?” He had no need to listen to someone on his national security team tell him something he said he already knew, Trump said.

I mean, he did tell us he knew “more about ISIS than the generals.” Isn’t that what he said?

Being something of a presidential traditionalist, I would prefer a return to the weekly radio speeches, rather than the Twitter tirades that are replete with misspellings, assorted nonsensical rants and, oh yeah, a total absence of credibility.