Tag Archives: GSA

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.

national news

Transition has begun; that’s what matters now

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I am delighted that the Donald Trump administration has begun the official transition to the Joe Biden administration.

There. It has begun. The General Services Administration has instructed the Trump team to begin working with the Biden team. That means a lot of things are going to happen in rapid succession.

Now, does it matter that Donald Trump continues to refuse to talk about losing the presidential election to President-elect Biden? Not … one … bit. Not even a little bit. It doesn’t matter to me in the least that Trump won’t concede, that he won’t admit to losing his re-election bid.

The GSA directive, which no doubt came with Trump’s blessing, means that the Trump administration is picking up the pace on its way out the door.

To which I say, “Wonderful! Hooray!”

There is not a word in the U.S. Constitution that says an outgoing president must concede. There’s no law on the books. It’s just been a tried-and-true presidential custom. Elections come and go. The loser concedes and calls the winner, who then makes a speech and tells us that he has just spoken with his opponent and offered his congratulations for waging a tough campaign. Then the winner makes his speech. He offers similar congratulations to the losing candidate.

That isn’t going to happen, more than likely, in this campaign. President-elect Biden already has declared victory. He didn’t need a concession to state the obvious: that he got more votes than Trump.

The big news rests with the GSA and its decision to let the transition begin officially, in earnest, for real.

That is all we need to hear. I will now watch with intense interest as President-elect Biden prepares to be become President Biden.

national news

Emily Murphy: shameful sycophant

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I haven’t commented specifically about Emily Murphy, who heads the General Services Administration … until now.

The GSA boss has done something she should have done more than two weeks ago, which was to begin the transition from the Donald Trump administration to the Joe Biden administration.

She didn’t. Murphy held up the transition because she believed Donald Trump’s bogus assertion about “widespread voter fraud” in the presidential election. By delaying the presidential transition this individual likely is responsible for the deaths of Americans brought by COVID pandemic. She has refused to refer to President-elect Biden by the title he has earned by virtue of his victory over Trump; what’s more, she hasn’t yet referred to Kamala Harris by her own title as vice president-elect.

However, she has directed the GSA to get started with the transition to the Biden administration. She doesn’t deserve a lick of praise. Oh, no. She has earned the scorn brought to her by folks such as me, who believe she and Donald Trump have put our democracy in peril by the refusal of Trump to concede that President-elect Biden defeated him in the election.

Emily Murphy has joined Donald Trump in the pantheon of petulant sore losers. She has made history, as well, by being the first GSA boss ever to dodge the duty she was empowered to perform, which was to certify the transition from the losing presidential candidate to the winner.

Murphy is a disgrace to the public office she occupies.

national news

Trump admits defeat … finally?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

If any reader of this blog believes I am about to offer a good word to Donald Trump for authorizing the beginning of the transition to a new administration, well … it ain’t gonna happen.

Trump has told the General Services Administration to begin the formal transition to an administration led by President-elect Joe Biden, who defeated Trump in the 2020 presidential election.

Sigh …

This should have happened, oh, about two weeks ago when the networks determined that Joe Biden had defeated Donald Trump and denied Trump a second term as president. It should have begun right then. Right there. At that moment.

Instead, we have been force-fed a series of lawsuits, complaints, tweets and blustering about a “rigged election,” replete with attempts to disenfranchise millions of Americans who cast their ballots freely, fairly and without a hint of corruption.

Now he has ordered the GSA to begin a process that has been delayed for far too long? Give me a break!

Donald Trump has inflicted terrible damage on the image of this country around the world. He has conducted himself with absolute disrespect for the nation’s electoral process. Trump has sown discontent throughout the system and has brought scorn and embarrassment to our government.

Am I now going to offer any praise for him now just because his administration is doing what it should have done weeks ago? Not on your life!

national news

Walls close in on Trump era

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Michigan has certified the results of the 2020 presidential election in that state, granting President-elect Biden 16 electoral votes.

Is that the end of Donald Trump’s foolish, feckless and futile attempt to overturn the results of the election? Not … yet.

Oops. Wait! This just in: The Trump administration has ordered the General Services Administration to begin the transition to the new administration. Finally! More on that later.

It appears that Trump is running out of any sort of legal wiggle room. State and federal judges keep tossing his lawsuits out. A federal judge in Pennsylvania did so with extreme malice; what’s more that judge, a George W. Bush appointee — meaning he is of a Republican ilk — did so with remarkable harsh language. He asserted that Trump has failed to provide evidence of voter fraud, which rendered his complaint not worth the court’s time.

That’s how it is going for Trump as he continues his campaign against the sanctity of our electoral process.

Donald Trump is disgracing himself daily, if not hourly. He  tweets lie upon lie. Trump continues to cling to power as if he would shrivel up and die without it.

Oh, and meanwhile …

President-elect Biden is forming a government. He has selected someone to serve as secretary of state, as secretary of homeland security, as United Nations ambassador, as Treasury secretary, as director of national intelligence, as climate change envoy. What do they have in common? They are experienced hands. They know government. They have worked at the highest levels already. They are ready to serve the public under the Biden administration.

Many of these folks will need to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate.

This is how it is supposed to go. Presidents get elected and they begin the search for competent, reliable and dedicated public servants to serve the nation they all love.

And the outgoing president instructs his staff to cooperate with the new team … and then steps aside.