medical news, national news

This clown is certifiable

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By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Good ever-lovin’ grief!

What in the world has become of our political discourse? Get a load of this piece of sh** commentary from a rookie congressman from the Texas Panhandle.

Ronny Jackson, a Republican, predicts President Biden will quit his office because he cannot pass a test of his mental acuity.

That is what this clown, a one-time physician, told Fox News’s Sean Hannity, who I suppose is in league with the fire-breathing loudmouth congressman.

The Hill reports:

“Donald Trump took a cognitive test. He got 30 out of 30 right. I hear it’s a very difficult test. I do not think Joe Biden would do well on that test. Is that a fair assessment based on what I’m observing?” Hannity asked Jackson.

“Absolutely, Sean, and I’ve been saying this from the very beginning. I’ve been saying that something’s going on here. I was saying this when he was candidate Joe Biden, and I’ve been saying that it’s only going to get worse, and guess what. We’re watching that happen right before our eyes right now,” Jackson said.

“There’s something seriously going on with this man right now, and, you know, I think that he’s either going to resign, they’re going to convince him to resign from office at some point in the near future for medical issues or they’re going to have to use the 25th Amendment to get rid of this man right now,” Jackson later added.

The Bozo doctor was White House physician when POTUS 45 lived there.

Ronny Jackson, former White House doctor, predicts Biden will resign (msn.com)

He once pronounced Biden’s predecessor to be the most fit man ever to serve as president. Now he is issuing diagnoses without ever consulting with the patient — Joe Biden?

Jackson also is offering half-baked, hare-brained “predictions” on the future of President Biden’s public career?

This clown is a disgrace to the office he occupies. I hope it’s a brief tenure in Congress.

medical news

Fauci gets his dander up

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By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

When someone who is in the public eye gets riled at a congressional hearing, then you have to suspect he or she has ample reason to step out of what we see as “normal behavior.”

So it was this week as Dr. Anthony Fauci took down another physician, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who accused Fauci of lying to Congress about the status of the nation’s fight against the COVID-19 pandemic and the delta variant that is wreaking so much havoc.

Let me be clear on this point. Sen. Paul is a medical doctor, but his specialty is ophthalmology. That is the study of disease involving one’s eyes. Dr. Fauci’s specialty involves infectious diseases of many stripes. Fauci is the expert on the COVID pandemic; Dr. Paul is not.

So … when Paul accused Fauci of lying to Congress, it fell on Fauci to fight back, to deliver a blistering retort, telling Paul that “you don’t know what you’re talking about,” and said that if “anyone is lying, it is you.”

Fauci took dead aim at the disinformation coming from the right wing of the political spectrum, where Sen. Paul sits.

Anthony Fauci took center stage when the 45th president appointed him to be part of the White House pandemic response team. He offered his advice and opinion on the state of play, only to be cast aside by the POTUS, who has called Fauci an “idiot.” He now serves as chief medical adviser to President Biden, who is letting the good doctor speak his mind without interference from the Oval Office.

Yes, Fauci has changed his tune a time or two about the virus. However, I continue to believe that he has learned about it as the world has learned more about the virus and its impact.

He has sought to de-politicize the argument about mask-wearing and other efforts to stem the infection, hospitalization and death rates caused by the virus. Yet when I hear cheap pols like Sen. Paul accuse him of lying while spewing the same fear-mongering nonsense that comes from the likes of the former Numbskull in Chief, it makes my blood boil.

I totally get why Dr. Fauci went off on Sen. Paul.

national news

Pelosi picks Kinzinger for select panel … yes!

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By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Adam Kinzinger is going to join another courageous Republican on a select congressional committee with the aim of finding out what the heck happened on Jan. 6 when the Insurrectionist in Chief egged on a mob to storm the Capitol Building.

Kinzinger is one of a handful of Republicans who voted to impeach the ex-POTUS for that act. Another Republican House member, Liz Cheney, also is serving on the committee selected by Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

GOP House leader Kevin McCarthy blames Pelosi for politicizing the process. Hah! McCarthy needs to check his defiance at the door and ponder something.

Congress had the chance to select an independent bipartisan commission to examine the Jan. 6 riot. Republicans in both legislative chambers balked. They refused to appoint the commission. So this is what we get: a select panel chosen by a Democratic House speaker.

Pelosi vetoed two of five GOP House members McCarthy selected: Jim Jordan and Jim Banks. McCarthy’s response then was to yank the three who made the cut from the committee.

So … Pelosi is now moving ahead. She has a bipartisan select committee getting ready to do its work.

The insurrection of Jan. 6 was an unprecedented event. The mob of terrorists sought to overturn the results of a legal, free and fair presidential election. The committee will want to get at the root of what caused the riot and presumably seek ways to prevent a recurrence.

Reps. Kinzinger and Cheney believe in the rule of law. They are faithful to their oath to protect the Constitution, unlike most of their GOP colleagues, who proclaim their fealty to the ex-Moron in Chief.

I am looking forward to watching this committee slog through its task to reach a conclusion based on the evidence it will receive.

local news, Sports news

Soddies have firm grip on fans

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By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Amarillo’s Central League baseball team, the Sod Poodles, are struggling a bit on the field this year. They are in last place in their division.

But … there’s some good news to report on the team that won the Texas League pennant in their first year of existence in 2019.

The fans are still flocking to Hodgetown, the shiny new ballpark that sits along Buchanan Street in downtown Amarillo. How do I know that, given I now live in Princeton, a suburb of Dallas?

I get the Sunday Dallas Morning News each week. I went out this morning to pick it up off my driveway. I opened the sports page and turned to the Central League box scores. I saw that the Sod Poodles had lost a game Saturday night at home to the Frisco Roughriders. However, they played before a packed house at Hodgetown.

This is good news on at least one important level. It tells me that the Sod Squad — a social media group — isn’t just a gaggle of fair-weather fans who cheer the Sod Poodles on only when they win. They’re with ’em through thick and thin. Let’s face it, they’ve hit a “thin” patch this season after sitting out all of 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic.

I remain proud of the baseball community in Amarillo, where my wife and I lived for 23 years before relocating to the Dallas ‘burbs.

Retired Amarillo College President Paul Matney, a vocal proponent of bringing minor-league ball back to Amarillo, once referred to his hometown as a “baseball city.”

That means they’re in it for the long haul with the team that many folks fought hard to bring to the High Plains.

environmental news

Climate change: It’s here!

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By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

We have reached critical mass, it appears to me, on the issue of climate change.

There should be no more debate on what to do “when the time comes.” It has come. We’re there. Earth’s climate, I fear, has changed to the point that it might be too late to stop the effect we human beings are having on the planet we call home.

That, however, shouldn’t preclude our efforts to try to do something. Anything! We need to find solutions to stop what is happening to us in real time.

That Bootleg Fire in Oregon? It’s now creating its own weather system as it scorches more than 600 square miles of my home state. Icebergs the size of small U.S. states continue to break off Antarctica, drifting into the Southern Ocean and continuing to contribute to the rising sea levels around the world. We continue to emit too many carbon gases, diminishing the oxygen supply that is supposed to help cool our dear planet.

Oh, and this story needs to be covered more intently: Third World countries continue to destroy millions of acres of forestland, depriving animals of their habitat and, of course, depriving the atmosphere its primary source for oxygen.

The fire seasons are raging out of control. They are arriving sooner, it seems, each year. They are burning more intensely.

What is the world’s most indispensable to do about it? Our Congress is tying itself up in knots over climate change. Republicans still don’t want to confront it. Democrats see the urgency but are fighting among themselves over the scope and breadth of what to do legislatively.

Meanwhile, President Biden is trying to include climate change into an infrastructure package he wants enacted as soon as humanly possible.

This dithering, dawdling and debating isn’t helping us deal with a problem that is destroying our planet in real time.

Let’s get busy.

national news, political news

‘Fraudit’ proves nothing

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By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Let’s call the Arizona “audit” of the 2020 presidential election what it is: a fraud.

Katie Hobbs, Arizona’s secretary of state, has declared her intense desire for the 45th POTUS to “accept the results” of the election — which he lost — and “move on.”

Well, good luck with that, Mme. Secretary. He won’t “move on,” at least not in the immediate or even long-term future.

What this whole exercise has demonstrated to those of us peering in from the outside is that the ex-Insurrectionist in Chief will stop at utterly nothing to hold onto the reins of power.

Reports are surfacing now that the “fraudit” that is concluding has found no demonstrable vote irregularity in Maricopa County, which helped deliver Arizona’s electoral votes to President Biden. The organization, which has zero experience with auditing elections, calls itself Cyber Ninjas. These goofballs have done nothing to advance the cause of voter integrity … because there is nothing to advance. The Arizona election was conducted fairly, cleanly, legally and was corruption-free.

So, the fraudulent exercise goes on. It appears to be nearing an end.

As The Hill reported: “The bottom line is that Arizonians are tired of being led by conspiracy theorists. They don’t support this fake audit, and they’re ready for leaders who are going to put those partisan games aside and deal with real issues,” Hobbs continued.

Arizona secretary of state to Trump before rally: ‘Take your loss and accept it and move on’ (msn.com)

President Biden has plenty of work to do. He need not be distracted for a single moment as he seeks to repair the wreckage left by his predecessor — who continues to deliver more wreckage by his idiotic quest for vote fraud that does not exist.

Sports news

Cleveland … Guardians?

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By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

OK. I am fine with the Washington Football Team of the National Football League jettisoning the name it used to call itself: the Redskins.

But, something inside my old man’s body tells me the Cleveland Indians’ decision to change its name to Guardians is a step too far into the realm of political correctness.

The Washington Football Team’s former name clearly had been interpreted as a slur against Native Americans. Old-time western cowboys would use the term as an epithet against Indians.

However, to change the name of one of Major League Baseball’s more storied franchises to the Guardians? I don’t get where this is going or where it might go.

As a friend of mine noted earlier today on social media, a Native American suited up for the Cleveland team many decades, becoming the first indigenous American to play big-league baseball. Thus, it is believed the Indians named the team in his honor.

Maybe I shouldn’t tread onto this ground, given that I am the grandson of immigrants from southern Europe. I don’t understand how a Native American might feel about an MLB team named the Indians. It’s just that to my eyes and ears the team nickname has a decidedly neutral sound to it, unlike the former name of the NFL team that plays tackle football in Washington, D.C.

How many more teams are going to succumb to the pressure that continues to mount?

Sigh …

Joe Biden, medical news, science news

Biden’s not to ‘blame’

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John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I am among the last people on Earth to criticize the media, given that I am among those who are still pursuing the craft (more or less) and that I believe the media are doing a good job of reporting the news.

That all said, I want to chide the media for suggesting/implying/inferring that President Biden is somehow to “blame” for the administration falling short of its goal of achieving “herd immunity” against the COVID pandemic by the Fourth of July.

Let us ponder this briefly …

Joe Biden promised to make the vaccines available to anyone who wants it. He delivered the goods there. The shortfall in getting 70 % percent of the nation inoculated is because of those who have bought into the right-wing claptrap about the vaccines.

President Biden has done what he can do. He has sought to persuade Americans that the vaccines are effective and will not cause undue harm to anyone who receives any of them.

Biden inherited a mess when he took office. The previous administration botched many aspects of its handling of the pandemic from the get-go. Yes, it enacted Operation Warp Speed in its effort to get vaccines developed and for that I am grateful. But the previous POTUS managed to contradict and undermine the medical experts he brought on board at every turn.

We continue to make progress against the pandemic, although it has slowed dramatically with the delta variant surge that has kicked the Biden administration in the teeth.

As for putting “blame” on President Biden for falling short of its herd immunity goal, well, the media should look instead at those who are outshouting the rest of us with their baseless condemnation of the vaccines.

medical news

Vaccines work … dammit!

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By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

When you ponder all the infectious diseases that have been eliminated from Planet Earth over the years, you might then grasp the utterly absurdity of the criticism that is being leveled at the COVID-19 vaccine that is slowly doing the same thing to the current pandemic.

Polio has been eradicated. Smallpox, too. Same for tuberculosis. Measles and chicken pox are still around, but children get vaccinated against them anyway.

A friend of mine posted something on Facebook that wondered whether the right-wing media outlets had been around when the Salk and Sabin polio vaccines were being distributed and whether they would be critical of those research efforts, too.

Of course they would!

We have entered some sort of political twilight zone. A U.S. president bungled the initial response to the COVID-19 pandemic as it gripped the nation and the world. Instead of taking ownership of his mistakes and his failure, he initiates a campaign that denigrates the vaccine and those who promote it.

It has snowballed ever since, becoming a monstrous liability in the effort to get all Americans vaccinated against the killer disease and the variants it has spawned.

Good grief, man! The historical evidence is all around us that well-researched, heavily tested and certified vaccines do the job they are intended to do. Those who refuse to protect themselves and their children put not only themselves at risk, they pose an existential threat to us all.

They should be deemed a menace to society.

medical news

POTUS 45’s silence: reprehensible

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By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

It is beyond my capacity to understand the silence of one prominent American politician, but it requires me to lament it nonetheless.

The 45th president of the United States has received his vaccination against the COVID-19 virus, along with his wife and children.

It boggles my mind why the ex-POTUS doesn’t speak out now to encourage those among his millions of adherents to get vaccinated … just as he did!

He has remained silent. He says not a damn thing to encourage those who are most susceptible to the delta variant to get the vaccine that would protect them.

I mean, think of it in terms of political payback.

If this former Moron in Chief wants to run for the presidency again in 2024, it would serve his political interest to keep them around. Right?

Do not misunderstand me. I do not want this reprehensible individual to reap any political benefit. Were he to possess an ounce of empathy or compassion POTUS 45 would step up and seek to dispel the hideous misinformation that has seeped into the minds of those who have refused to receive the vaccine that could save their lives. Doing so well could prevent governments at all levels from reinstating restrictions that no one wants them to do.

The evidence of the delta variant’s impact is clear. It is sickening and killing un-vaccinated Americans at a far greater rat than it is harming those who are vaccinated.

Didn’t the ex-POTUS run for the nation’s highest office proclaiming to be a “populist”? My definition of the term tells me he is supposed to favor policies and make pronouncements that benefit the non-rich among us. Except that he isn’t a populist. He is a serial liar and con man.

That reality likely makes my humble plea an exercise in futility.

Instead of spreading The Big Lie about phony voter fraud and suggesting he will be “reinstated” as POTUS by the end of the summer, the former Imbecile in Chief can perform — finally! — an act of public service.

How? Just tell his fanatics to get vaccinated!

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