Tag Archives: Ronald Reagan

International news

Architect of Cold War end dies

Americans have spent a lot of emotional capital over the past 30 years congratulating two U.S. presidents over their role in the demise of the Cold War and of the Soviet Union.

Yes, Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush deserve credit for their roles in ending the “original” Cold War.

However, I want to offer a tribute to a third world leader who today passed from the scene. Mikhail Gorbachev, the final premier of what we used to know as the Soviet Union, died at age 91.

He, at least as much as the two U.S. presidents, is responsible for ending the age of duck-and-cover drills and worries about nuclear-missile strikes from the Evil Empire.

Gorbachev surrendered his office when the Soviet Union evaporated. He turned it over the Boris Yeltsin, who then had the unenviable task of trying to turn an ironclad dictatorship into something that resembled a democratic society. It hasn’t worked out … yet!

The United States was able to win the Cold War of attrition by forcing the Soviets to build weapons they couldn’t afford. The Soviets bankrupted their economy by building nukes and all manner of military hardware they still like to put on parade in Red Square.

Gorbachev recognized what so many of his communist predecessors ignored.

So, when President Reagan stood at the Hindenberg Gate in Berlin and declared, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall,” the Soviet leader well might have actually listened on that day.

The Berlin Wall came down in 1989, thanks to Gorbachev’s acknowledging he was on the wrong side of history. Two years after that? He said goodbye to the Soviet Union.

Hey, don’t misunderstand me. I stand with those who applaud Presidents Reagan and Bush for the strength they showed in waging the Cold War with the Soviet Union. I also want to applaud Gorbachev for acting on the realization that the communist experiment in his country was a monumental failure.

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And I cannot pay tribute to Gorbachev’s wisdom without mentioning one of his descendants’ idiotic view that the Soviet demise was a “dark day” in the history of his country. Vladimir Putin is as wrong to want a return to that hideous system as he was wrong to presume that he could take over Ukraine in a matter of days.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

legal news

Waiting for phony SCOTUS objections

Let the debate begin now that President Biden has presented us with a historic selection for the U.S. Supreme Court. What will intrigue me for certain are the phony objections that U.S. senators are going to present as they argue against the nomination of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to become the latest justice on the nation’s highest court.

The trumped-up objections will come from Republicans in the Senate. They will cling to ridiculous notions that Joe Biden engaged in an “affirmative action” hire in selecting Judge Jackson. Why? Because as a presidential candidate in 2020, Joe Biden promised to nominate a Black woman to the court if he got the chance. Justice Stephen Breyer delivered that chance to President Biden when he declared his intention to retire from the court at the end of its current term.

The president vowed to find a stellar jurist. He found her in the person of Ketanji Brown Jackson. There should be no debate over her qualifications.

I want to make the point that I have sought to make for many years when these nominations come forward. Elections have consequences. I have said so when Republican presidents have made these nominations, as well as when Democrats do so. President Biden’s election in 2020 means that he gets the chance to deliver on his constitutional duty, which he has done.

Judge Jackson by all accounts is a first-rate, top-drawer, stellar jurist. She has a well-rounded background in the law, serving as a public defender as well as a prosecutor.

I am not going to listen to those who gripe about President Biden’s decision to look exclusively for a Black woman to fill this important lifetime post. Ronald Reagan made a similar pledge in in 1980, as did Donald Trump in 2020. They both delivered on their pledges and Republicans said not a single thing to object to their commitments.

Whatever phony excuse they come up with now should be greeted with all the derision they deserve.

Ketanji Brown Jackson deserves to take her seat on the nation’s highest court … period.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

World has flipped

What in the name of political sanity has happened to this old world of ours? I mean, we have Republicans and conservative media voices speaking fondly of a Russian dictator while Democrats and more progressive media voices are yelling loudly to get tough with the strongman.

There once was a time when the roles were reversed. No longer, folks.

Russian dictator Vladimir Putin has positioned his forces to invade Ukraine. A former GOP president has declared Putin to be a “genius” for the way he is preparing for the bloodbath. The current Democratic president is vowing punishing sanctions on Russia if Putin goes through with what the whole world believes he will do.

I remember the age of the Evil Empire that became the target of scorn and anger from Republicans in Congress and the president of the United States, Ronald Wilson Reagan. Democrats were seen as being squishy on the communists.

Now it’s the Democrats who are staking out tough-guy positions against the Soviet descendants and Republicans are questioning why the president is all fired up about seeking to stop the Russian advance on Ukraine.

What the … ?

I can’t figure this out, other than linking all of this to the arrival of The Donald on our political scene. He cozied up to the strongman and actually denigrated our intelligence network’s assertion that Russia interfered in our 2016 election.

Hmm. Therein might be Donald’s enduring legacy. He has helped flip the political calculus totally on its ear. Frankly, I prefer the side that remains angry with Putin and the Russians.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

economic news

Morning in America dawns again

Ronald W. Reagan campaigned for re-election in 1984 as president on the theme that it was “morning in America.” By golly, it worked as President Reagan steamrolled to a smashing landslide victory, winning 49 states and rolling up an Electoral College margin of 525 to 13.

Well, guess what, ladies and gentlemen. I believe it’s “morning in America” is dawning yet again in the good ol’ U.S. of A.

Economic reports show that the Gross Domestic Product grew at a rate not seen since 1984. Unemployment is now down to 3.9%, which is about where it was prior to the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. More jobs have been added to non-farm payrolls at any time in the first year of a presidency, which is something that Joe Biden has been proclaiming for a good while.

What does this mean for the president? It means he has some grist on which to build a campaign in advance of this year’s midterm election, which will be a setup for the 2024 presidential campaign.

I am aware of the hurdles that remain. We need to rein in inflation; the Federal Reserve Board is poised to do that by increasing interest rates this year. There are some foreign-policy issues with which to deal, such as Russia and Ukraine, China’s bellicosity and threats against Taiwan, the ongoing Middle East tensions. Of course, we also have climate change … and the pandemic.

Economically, it is morning once again across the land.

The president needs to be careful to avoid hogging more credit than he deserves. I have noted for longer than I can remember that POTUSes don’t deserve all the blame nor do they deserve all the credit for swings in the economy.

The good and the bad, though, occur on their watch. Thus, they become the hero or the zero, depending on which way the economy is tracking.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

legal news

Hey, Gipper said so first!

President Biden pledged once again today to make an unprecedented appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court. He will find an African American woman to nominate to the court to succeed Justice Stephen Breyer.

OK. That’s unprecedented. I get it. However, he ain’t the first president or candidate for POTUS to make a pledge to find someone of a particular gender to the court.

Ronald Reagan did so while running for the presidency in 1980. He said a few weeks before that election he would nominate the first woman to the court. He won big that year. And in 1981 President Reagan made good on the promise by nominating Sandra Day O’Connor to the Supreme Court.

We’re good so far, right?

Conservatives then hailed the choice.

Their reaction to President Biden’s pledge? Why, he’s slamming the door shut on qualified judges; they say he is launching an affirmative action program to the court selection process; we can’t allow the president to pick someone who might not pass judicial muster, as if the person’s racial background by itself is an impediment.

The duplicity is stunning.

I am going to hold onto every confidence on God’s good Earth that President Biden is going to find a top-drawer, first-rate, learned jurist … who just happens to be an African American woman to serve on the nation’s highest court.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

11th Commandment? Goner!

Donald J. Trump might be the only major Republican political figure who never invokes the principles espoused by the godfather of the current conservative movement: Ronald Wilson Reagan.

That’s no surprise, though, given that Trump has no knowledge, let alone appreciation, for what Reagan brought to the country upon his election as president in 1980 and re-election four years later.

It also explains why Trump has trashed Reagan’s cherished 11th Commandment, which he stated as “Thou shalt not speak ill of other Republicans.”

You see, Trump is harvesting a handsome bit of political cache by trashing Republican officeholders and those who seek to hold office. If they aren’t loyal to Donald Trump, then they’re “losers,” or “has beens,” or “disgraceful human beings.”

Don’t misunderstand me. I didn’t vote for The Gipper either time when he ran for president. I wasn’t much of a fan of him, although I did develop a good bit of empathy for him and his family when he told us he suffered from Alzheimer’s disease; I remember vividly that poignant letter he released to the public on Nov. 5, 1994, announcing he would recede into the shadows to fight the illness that eventually claimed him a decade later.

But real Republicans usually find something common ground with what President Reagan espoused. Plus, they have remained somewhat faithful to the 11th Commandment.

Trump, though, is not a real Republican and isn’t faithful to anything on this good Earth other than his own ego.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news

Reagan assailant goes free? Oh, my!

You may consider me as one American who believes John Hinckley does not deserve an unconditional release from custody.

I mean, all he did  was shoot President Reagan in March 1981, damn near killing him, while grievously wounding others in a melee outside the Washington Hilton hotel. One of his other victims was White House press secretary James Brady, who never recovered from the grievous brain injury he suffered; Brady has since died of complications suffered from that shooting.

U.S. President Reagan’s shooter John Hinckley wins unconditional release (msn.com)

A jury would acquit Hinckley on grounds that he was insane when he did the deed. He spent decades in an institution. Then he was released in the custody of his mother, who has since died.

Now a judge has said he can walk free among the rest of us, without condition.

Bad call, judge.

The late president’s daughter, Patti Davis, has argued that Hinckley has shown no remorse and shouldn’t be allowed to roam free. I agree with her.

If the assailant had demonstrated any actual remorse, then might be different. I am unaware of anything he has said or done since the trial to suggest any feeling of the sort over what he did.

The entire nation needs to keep a sharp and vigilant eye on this individual once he is free of the restrictions under which he has lived.

Just one more point. Hinckley is now 66 years of age, meaning that he is still capable of doing harm to others.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

No truer words, Gov. Christie

“No man, no woman, no matter what office they’ve held or wealth they’ve acquired, are worthy of blind faith or obedience.”

Do you know who said that? If not, I’ll tell you.

Those words come from former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a one-time foe of the 45th president of the United States, who became an ally of his during  his term in office, and who now seems to be reverting to his former truth-telling self.

Christie spoke Thursday at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, site of a symposium on the future of the Republican Party.

Of course he is right about blind fealty to an individual. No political organization can survive if it attaches itself to the whims and wishes of one person, which the GOP has done as it gloms onto the dictates of the twice-impeached former POTUS.

Sadly, given the climate in which we now are living, the Kool-Aid swilling cabal of loyalists are winning the argument within the once-great Republican Party.

Christie also said this at the Reagan Library: “Pretending we won when we lost is a waste of time, and energy and credibility.” Ah, yes. Credibility. That’s the biggest and most important “waste” cited by the former New Jersey governor.

Christie Decries Focus on Lying, Conspiracies in Stinging Rebuke of GOP (msn.com)

Then again, the former Liar in Chief, the chief purveyor of the Big Lie, has zero credibility anyway … at least among us who saw him for what he was when he entered presidential politics in the summer of 2015. We saw him as a phony and a fraud, but someone quite capable of hijacking a political party — which he continues to do.

I fear Gov. Christie is piddling into the wind while trying to persuade the GOP of the dire need to change course. My bigger fear is that the truth he is telling will be translated into another lie that the cultists who adhere to POTUS 45 will use to their perverted advantage.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Government no longer ‘the problem’?

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

President Ronald W. Reagan stood on the Capitol steps on Jan. 20, 1981 and declared that “government is the problem.”

President Joseph R. Biden stood inside the House chamber on Wednesday night and said, well, something quite different, that government can repair what ails many Americans.

So it is that the “era of big government” is returning to the forefront of American life. I have slightly mixed feelings about that, although I do endorse much of what President Biden wants to bring to the lives of Americans ravaged by a global pandemic and the economic hardship that accompanied it.

I endorse Biden’s call for comprehensive immigration reform. I believe the government needs to make permanent the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals program — which lends a hand to those who were brought here illegally as children by their parents.

The nation’s infrastructure as Biden has defined it needs government help. I endorse the president’s plan to tax the wealthiest Americans more to pay for much of his big agenda.

Free community college for every student? Hmm. Not sure about that one.

Climate change poses an existential threat to our national security and, yes, government has a role to play in stemming the impact of the change on our fragile planet.

Joe Biden’s speech Wednesday night wasn’t a stemwinder. It didn’t move Americans to jump into the fight fully. It was, however, far from the dark, forbidding speech that Donald J. Trump gave at his inaugural in 2017.

Although, I do want to say that Biden’s speech did contain at least one reference that might stand the test of time, which is that the Jan. 6 insurrection was the worst such act “since the Civil War.”

President Biden has laid out an aggressive government agenda. He said that inaction is not an option, that Congress must seize the moment and act on behalf of an entire generation.

Oh, I am certain that the Republicans who occupy a hefty minority in both congressional chambers will dig in on their opposition to anything that comes from the Democratic administration. It is their modus operandi.

I stand, though, as one American patriot who welcomes the return of our federal government as a last resort to helping Americans who continue to suffer from a killer virus.

national news

What happened to 11th Commandment?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Ronald W. Reagan would be an angry man today.

President Reagan once coined a phrase that became known as the 11th Commandment, which stated that “Thou shalt not speak ill of other Republicans.” The Republican Party of President Reagan’s era wasn’t always faithful to that “commandment.”

Today it is so far removed from that dictum that the party bears virtually no resemblance to the conservative political organization that Reagan helped reconstruct in the 1980s.

Instead, the nation is watching a party being retooled yet again by the latest GOP president, who is launching a nationwide campaign against any Republican who dared stand against him while he committed high crimes and misdemeanors against the U.S. of A.

Donald Trump is now targeting, for example, the Republican secretary of state of Georgia, Brad Raffensperger, who had the temerity to resist the Big Lie that Trump keeps telling that the Georgia presidential election was “stolen” from Trump and given to President Biden. The ex-president is backing a GOP primary opponent against Raffensperger, whose only “sin” was to, um, follow the damn law!

Trump looks to take down Raffensperger in Georgia – POLITICO

Trump has taking aim as well across the nation, seeking to destroy GOP politicians who just couldn’t bring themselves to practice blind fealty to the disgraced former president.

If only President Reagan were around today to take the former Numbskull in Chief to the proverbial “woodshed.”