State news

Uvalde to be theme of 2022 Texas midterm campaign

Hey, this is just a hunch, but I’ll toss it out there to see if sticks to any walls, but I believe that the Uvalde massacre this week might become the central campaign issue in the Texas midterm election campaign.

It’ll dominate the races for governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, perhaps for the Legislature. Heck it might even play in some county commissioners court campaigns somewhere in Texas.

You know the story about the lunatic who entered Robb Elementary School and massacred 19 children and two teachers. About how Border Patrol tactical squad officers shot him to death. Now come the questions about how the gunman entered the building with relative ease — while packing an AR-15 rifle, the kind used to kill soldiers on the battlefield!

Beto O’Rourke crashed a press conference held by Gov Greg Abbott on Wednesday and said Abbott deserves blame for the deaths in Uvalde. O’Rourke is running against Abbott this year. Hold on with both hands, folks. Because this ride is going to get mighty rough.

Many millions of Americans are enraged at what happened in Uvalde. They damn sure should be. The question now becomes whether there can be a solution found to stem the violence. O’Rourke is correct to suggest that those in power should be held accountable for their inaction.

Thus, we have the campaign theme taking shape as we grieve the deaths in Uvalde.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

State news

Thank you, Beto

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Beto O’Rourke stood up and spoke for millions of Americans who are heartbroken, shattered and grief-stricken over the latest eruption of violence in one of our public schools.

The Democratic Party nominee for Texas governor stood before the man he hopes to defeat. Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, and accused his foe of “doing nothing” to stop the violence. He was shouted down by others on the dais with Abbott and escorted out of the room.

But was it uncalled for? Did O”Rourke say anything inappropriate? No. He spoke from the heart and spoke for many Texans and other Americans.

Twenty-one people died Tuesday morning in Uvalde’s Ross Elementary School; 19 of the victims were third- and fourth-grade students. Children! The two adults were teachers who fought to protect them against the madman who opened fire.

Uvalde police officers and Border Patrol officers were able to kill the shooter.

This debate has exploded yet again. Beto O’Rourke correctly called Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan and other legislative leaders for their abject failure to confront the issue of gun violence. Indeed, Abbott has actually boasted about legislation he signed this past year that allows people to carry firearms openly without so much as a certificate attesting their proficiency in handling a deadly weapon.

Abbott spoke about the need for greater “mental health” care for Texans, as if suggesting that residents of this state are somehow nuttier than anyone else.

We need tougher restrictions on gun ownership. We need common-sense legislation that honors the Constitution but seeks to prevent nut cases like the loon who stormed into Robb Elementary School to do the dastardly deed he carried out.

We need to find common ground among legislators of both political parties.

Why in the name of all that is sacred is that so hard to find?

Thank you, Beto O’Rourke, for standing up to the do-nothings whose inaction allows this carnage to continue.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

State news

Uvalde = tragedy

Make no mistake about this bit of tragic reality: a beautiful South Texas community is going to be tagged with an identifier that links it to tragedy.

It burst onto our national consciousness Tuesday with the shooting deaths at Robb Elementary School of 19 children and two educators who sought to shield the kids from the lunatic who burst into the school brandishing an AR-15 rifle.

Police killed the shooter. But not before the gunman killed all those children and the teachers who fought to protect them.

My question now is whether Uvalde will be associated forever with tragedy. Or will the town of about 15,000 people be known as the place that stirred legislators, governors, members of Congress to act — finally! — in the interests of protecting other children in other communities?

My heart and my head are conflicting with each other on this one. My heart requires me to hope that Uvalde becomes synonymous with actual reform to stop gun violence, particularly the kind of hideous violence that has thrown the nation into this spasm of grief. My head, though, yanks me back into reality, in that we have traveled down this path too many times already only to be saddened at the lack of reform.

I won’t give up on my hope for the former.

Still, we have a lot of grieving and mourning to complete as we seek to grasp the ghastly reality of what has just unfolded.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news

Massacre must mobilize us

As a general rule I do not categorize myself as a “single-issue voter” motivated to cast my ballot on just one critical issue of the moment.

The massacre that erupted in Uvalde, Texas, however, is likely to turn me into someone I do not generally profess to be. Nineteen children and two educators are dead today in the wake of the state’s worst-ever school massacre and the second-deadliest such tragedy in the nation’s history.

My aim now — along with my bride — is to ensure that every candidate for statewide office on the ballot this year, along with local congressional, legislative and county candidates seeking my vote answer this question the correct way: Are you willing to support the enactment of laws — either at the state or federal level — that seek to prevent future tragedies such as what has occurred in Uvalde?

If they hem and haw their way around an answer and follow the preposterous lead of the likes of Sen. Ted Cruz, then they will not have my vote. Cruz decided immediately Tuesday after the Uvalde slaughter to blame the media and Democrats for “politicizing” the issue of gun violence.

Politicize? Is this nimrod serious?

We happen to require a political solution to this crisis and make no mistake, we have entered a crisis with this spate of gun violence.

I will reject with all due vigor any notion that we cannot find a legislative solution. I will reject as well the notion that we cannot find common ground among politicians to seek solutions that do not violate our Constitution’s guarantee of the right of Americans to “keep and bear arms.”

Any politician who cannot bring himself or herself to seek those solutions needs to be voted out of office and banished from the public arena.

We have had enough.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

State news

Cancel meeting, NRA!

If the men and women who run the National Rifle Association had anything resembling a beating heart, they would cancel their planned annual convention, set to convene in Houston.

Why cancel? Oh, because of the massacre that occurred today Uvalde’s Robb Elementary School in which 19 children and two educators were slaughtered.

The NRA keeps yammering against any form of additional laws to prevent this recurring madness. The pro-gun crowd will gather in Houston and well might proclaim to the world that we have enough laws on the books, even in the wake of the latest violent spasm.

Disgraceful.

The NRA should cancel its meeting.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

‘What are we doing?’

Chris Murphy is able to speak with a rare form of credibility on the tragedy that has struck once again in the United States.

Murphy is a Connecticut Democrat who represents a state in the U.S. Senate that has felt the pain we are feeling tonight in the wake of the Uvalde, Texas, school massacre.

“Just days after a shooter walked into a grocery store to gun down African-American patrons, we have another Sandy Hook on our hands,” Murphy said. “Our kids are living in fear every single time they set foot in the classroom because they think they’re going to be next. What are we doing?”

Murphy stood on the Senate floor today and pleaded with his colleagues to do something to stem the violence that erupted in South Texas. More than a dozen children and a teacher are dead along with the lunatic who opened fire at Robb Elementary School.

‘What are we doing?’: Sen. Chris Murphy gives emotional speech on Texas elementary school shooting (msn.com)

A decade ago, another madman opened fire at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., killing 20 first- and second-graders along with six educators before killing himself. President Obama called it the darkest day of his two terms in office.

What did we do then? Nothing!

What are we doing now? Sen. Murphy is asking the most relevant question possible in this time of national grief.

I am one American who will not accept any excuse that our Congress cannot enact laws that can do something to make it more difficult to commit these types of crimes. I will not listen to those who continue to proclaim that the Constitution prohibits any legislative remedy.

They are wrong and they should be ashamed.

Murphy continued: “This only happens in this country and nowhere else. Nowhere else do little kids go to school, thinking that they might be shot that day. Nowhere else do parents have to talk to their kids, as I have had to do about why they got locked into a bathroom and told to be quiet for five minutes just in case a bad man entered that building. Nowhere else does that happen except here in the United States of America, and it is a choice. It is our choice to let it continue.”

This madness cannot  continue.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news

No! Not again!

Uvalde, Texas, has just joined an infamous and shockingly growing list of communities ravaged and savaged by senseless and horrific gun violence.

Fourteen students died today along with a teacher in the latest mass shooting to send us all into grief-stricken agony.

A high school student at Uvalde High School, apparently the suspect, also is dead.

14 students, 1 teacher dead after shooting at elementary school: Governor (msn.com)

Oh, my. I am going to need some time to process this one.

I’ll just leave you with an expression of horror and mounting fear for children as well as those who are assigned to protect them all across this land.

When does it end? When?

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

legal news

Oh, the irony of racism

Don’t you just marvel at the irony that presents itself at times as we seek to understand our nation’s history?

This particular message showed up on my Facebook feed. It illustrates what happened to a girl named Ruby Bridges, an African American student who sought to enroll in a Louisiana school many decades ago.

She was pelted with rocks, insults and epithets from those who said she didn’t belong in the same classroom with white kids.

Now we have a movement in this country that seeks to keep that historical fact from being taught to today’s youngsters. They fear it would breed “hatred” of their country. Well … no, it wouldn’t. It would seek to connect all the facets of our past and link them to our present day.

What is so wrong with that? Someone will have to explain to me why — as the text notes in the photo — why Grandma and Grandpa want to prevent their grandkids from learning all aspects of this great nation’s history.

Every single great civilization has its blemishes, its dark chapters. We need to pass them on to our children to help them understand fully the path we have taken.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news

‘Speedy and public trial’?

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In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial …

— Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution

A part of me wants to laugh out loud at that statement from our nation’s governing document. You see, it doesn’t require a speedy and public trial. It merely grants people accused of crimes the “the right” to one.

Unless, of course, “speedy and public” is a code for conviction in the eyes of the accused and his or her legal defense team.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has been awaiting a speedy and public trial for seven years. Yep, seven years ago, the newly elected AG became the newly indicted AG when a Collin County grand jury charged him with securities fraud.

The AG is running for re-election to a third term in office. His Republican runoff opponent, Land Commissioner George P. Bush has been trying to make a dent in the AG’s armor by reminding Texas Republicans that they might have a crook working as the state’s top lawyer.

I am afraid George P’s message will go unheeded and that Paxton will be renominated by the party to run for re-election this fall.

This isn’t right. The case has bounced around from court to court. Paxton and his team have employed every legal trick at their disposal to hem and haw their way out of standing trial.

I happen to have faith in our judicial system, even when it stumbles and fumbles along, as it has in this case. I merely want to the case to be adjudicated.

Yes, my faith in the court system has faced serious challenges over many years. O.J. Simpson’s acquittal on a murder charge in 1995 is the most glaring example. The nation watched the sh** show trial drag on for months on end, only to watch in disbelief as the jury returned a not-guilty verdict after four hours of deliberation.

I disagreed with the verdict, but I accepted it. I also understood how the jury could reach the decision it did in so little time, given the defense put on by Simpson’s legal team led by the late Johnnie Cochrane. He planted doubt early on in the minds of the jurors.

But that’s the way it goes in this country.

Paxton should have gone to trial long ago. My own bias tells me he should already be locked up in the slammer. I would accept an acquittal just as I did when O.J. was allowed to walk free and spend the rest of his life “looking for those” who killed his ex-wife and her boyfriend.

I am sure Ken Paxton would embrace publicly the Sixth Amendment’s promise of a speedy and public trial. Except that it wouldn’t serve his political purposes.

Hey, the system ain’t perfect!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

First Amendment violation? Nope!

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof ….

First Amendment, U.S. Constitution

Of course, the First Amendment says a lot more, but this is the first clause in the first attempt to improve the nation’s governing document.

I want to bring this up because of something I posted earlier about whether we can tax religious organizations if they seek to coerce or bully politicians into enacting certain public policy.

I believe religious organizations that endorse candidates for public office or — in the case of the San Francisco Catholic archdiocese — deny communion to officials over their abortion stance make them fair game for taxation.

Public policy = taxation | High Plains Blogger

I’ve seen some chatter out there that such a taxing policy would violate the “separation between church and state” spelled out in the First Amendment. I shall disagree with all due respect.

The religious exemption is quite specific, as I read the Constitution. It declares only that Congress must avoid enacting laws that establish a religion. The clause makes no mention of tax policy. It says only that the government cannot force people to believe a certain or faith or prohibit them from the freedom to worship — or not worship — as they please.

It appears to my reading that the Constitution grants considerable leeway to tax religious organizations if their leaders venture into the political realm.

The late Rev. Jerry Falwell entered the arena in the 1980s and 1990s with his constant attacks on Bill and Hillary Clinton; so did the Rev. Franklin Graham with his endorsement of political candidates; Catholic clergy have sought to deny politicians communion over abortion policy for decades; churches with predominant African American congregations have been staging political rallies for many years.

All of them are exempted from paying taxes.

To ascribe some sort of constitutional prohibition from taxing these entities is to expand what the First Amendment declares beyond anything I recognize.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

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