national news

Glad he spoke out, however …

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

As glad as I am to hear former U.S. House Speaker John Boehner speak out against what he calls “political terrorism” within the Republican Party, I would be remiss if I didn’t recognize an obvious element of history.

While the ex-speaker decries the harsh partisanship that has infected the current political climate, he needs to own his particular contribution to that infection.

He called the Affordable Care Act the greatest sin ever perpetrated on Americans. Boehner filed lawsuits to stop the implementation of President Obama’s signature domestic policy achievement. He did plenty of blustering and bellowing from the House floor about the evils of his Democratic colleagues’ intent.

Has the former speaker had an epiphany? Has he realized what he did contributed to today’s toxicity? I hope that is the case.

Still, to hear him refer to Sen. Ted Cruz as “Lucifer in the flesh,” and to express his profound revulsion over the insurrection that occurred on Jan. 6 remains music to my admittedly partisan ears.

crime news

No excuse for looting

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

This should go without ever saying it, but I feel a need to state the obvious.

A young man is dead tonight from a gunshot fired by a Brooklyn Center, Minn., police officer who thought she was pointing a taser at the young man. Instead, she fired her service pistol at his chest. He drove his car away, crashed it and then died on the scene of the wreck.

The response in nearly Minneapolis and in other communities has resulted in looting, vandalism and violence. It has been launched against people who have not a single thing on Earth to do with what happened to the young man, Daunte Wright.

President Biden issued a statement, declaring there to be “no justification” for violence. He acknowledges the right of those who want to protest peacefully. The president’s message likely will be ignored by the looters.

Two things about this case are astonishing in the extreme. Daunte Wright was a young black man; the officer who shot him is white. Moreover, the incident occurred about 10 miles from where a highly publicized trial — with former officer Derek Chauvin being charged with murder in the death of George Floyd — is under way. Floyd was black; Chauvin is white. You know the story about what happened to Floyd.

As USA Today reports: Biden stressed there is “absolutely no justification” for looting and violence.

“Peaceful protest is understandable,” he said. “And the fact is that we do know that the anger, pain and trauma that exists in Black community in that environment is real – it’s serious, and it’s consequential. But that does not justify violence.”

He added: “We should listen to Dante’s mom who is calling for peace and calm.”

Biden calls for ‘peace and calm’ after Daunte Wright shooting sparks protests in Minnesota (yahoo.com)

Is it me or do we seem to be entering a whole new phase of civil unrest, the likes of which many of us never have experienced?

What I want to know is this: How in the name of serving and protecting the public does a trained police officer mistake a taser for a fully armed service pistol?

crime news

How does a police officer do this?

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By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

With much of the nation riveted on the trial of a former cop who suffocated a man by pressing his knee on the back of his neck, I am utterly astonished at the conduct of another police officer who decided to roust a uniformed Army lieutenant.

Derek Chauvin, a white former Minneapolis police officer, is on trial for killing George Floyd, a black man arrested for passing a fake piece of currency.

Now we have former white cop Joe Gutierrez pepper-spraying 2nd Lt. Caron Nazario after stopping him because Nazario, who also is black, didn’t have a license plate displayed on his brand new vehicle.

Perhaps you have seen the video of Gutierrez ordering Nazario to get out of his car. Nazario was trying to talk the officer down. Gutierrez responds by spraying Nazario in the face while he was sitting behind the steering wheel of his car! The more recent incident occurred in Windsor, Va.; the city manager has fired Gutierrez.

Yes, the incident involving Lt. Nazario occurred in December, prior to the start of the Chauvin trial. Still, intense public scrutiny of George Floyd’s death garnered tremendous attention. It called attention to police conduct throughout the nation.

Yet we now have video showing an officer overreacting in the extreme on a traffic stop that never, ever should have escalated to the level that it did.

It is fair to ask: Did the ex-officer choose to drop the hammer on the young Army officer only because he is a black man?

Joe Gutierrez: Windsor, Virginia police officer who pepper-sprayed an Army officer during a traffic stop, has been fired (msn.com)

This national conversation must continue. There must be some resolution to what is becoming what looks to be an all-too-frequent occurrence.

I have long stated my belief and support of police officers. I recognize the life-threatening danger to which they expose themselves every day they report for work. I have known many fine officers over my years covering their activities while working in the media; I live next door to a fine young man who patrols our highways for the Texas Department of Public Safety.

Still, what we now have seen unfold in Windsor, Va., simply boggles my noggin.

national news

Boehner comes out swinging

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

There he is, suddenly becoming a major newsmaker.

John Boehner had been in relative seclusion since walking away from political life six years ago. Make no mistake that he wasn’t my favorite pol when he served as speaker of the House, given his penchant for trying to block meaningful legislation pitched by President Obama.

Now, though, Boehner is back in the news. Suddenly he has become one of my favorites. How’d that happen? Because he is hanging “political terrorist” labels on some seriously bad dudes in public life today. They are, for example, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio and, oh yeah, Donald J. Trump of Mar-a-Lago.

Boehner has decided to reveal his deepest feelings about the insurrection of Jan. 6, about Trump’s conduct prior to and after the 2020 election, about what an a**hole Ted Cruz has been while serving in the Senate and Jim Jordan’s conduct as one of Trump’s suck-ups in the House.

In interviews, the former speaker has declared his disgust and revulsion at what has become of the Republican Party to which he has belonged for decades. The emotional politician shed a couple of tears on TV this past weekend talking to CBS News about his feelings watching the terrorists storm the Capitol Building at Trump’s urging.

Boehner is now a civilian. He won’t be back in the saddle. The former speaker of the House, however, remains a potent political antidote to the toxic mix that comprises today’s Republican Party.

Thus, I welcome his return to the limelight.

media news

In defense of newspapers

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Every so often I find myself answering the same question and I have refined my answer to a level I can explain with relative ease.

It came to me again this morning right here in Princeton, Texas. A young dental hygienist asked me what I did for a living. I told her I am retired but was a journalist for nearly four decades. I reported for newspapers, I told her, and then gravitated to opinion writing and editing.

She gave me the obligatory “I like holding a newspaper in my hands” while reading it and then asked: Do you think the reporting is unbiased?

Hmm. It is, I told her. I mentioned that many newspapers around the world — large, small and all sizes in between — continue to do first-rate reporting. They get to the facts, report them fairly and accurately.

What has changed, I told my new friend, is the audience. Consumers of news now seem to want more opinion, I said. I encourage her to look carefully at how large newspapers are covering events of the day.

I didn’t get a sense of her bias, although I reminded her that in my years working as a journalist I learned that “bias inherently is in the eyes of the consumer.” People ascribe bias to solid news reporting when it doesn’t comport with their own world view. Thus, the audience has changed its outlook.

Newspapers continue to do good work. The big folks — Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Dallas Morning News, Houston Chronicle, you name ’em — keep churning out good work for readers to consume. Some newspaper publishers do look for ways to cover stories intending to embarrass certain people in high places. I have learned to look the other way when I see the names of certain news organizations plastered on stories that have that ring of sensationalism.

I admit freely — and I have done so repeatedly over the years — that I do not disguise my own bias. I have it. You have it. We all have our bias. However, I am able to disseminate hard, cold facts from what I call “advocacy journalism.”

Believe me, there remains plenty of great reporting of just the facts out there.

crime news

Waiting for end to this trial

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I try not to let my fear consume me, but I do have a particular fear about how this trial under way in Minneapolis might play out.

A former police officer, Derek Chauvin, is on trial in the death of George Floyd, whose life was snuffed out when Chauvin pressed his knee on the back of Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes.

The prosecution is about to wrap up its case against Chauvin, who is charged with second-degree manslaughter and third-degree murder.

My fear? It’s that the defense is going to persuade one juror that there is “reasonable doubt” that Chauvin’s actions resulted in Floyd’s death.

I haven’t heard every single word of the testimony so far, but I remain convinced that Chauvin’s brutal restraint tactic resulted in the death of a man as he was being arrested — for passing a counterfeit $20 bill. Talk about the punishment not fitting the crime.

I am sitting far away from the trial. I fear what the reaction might be if jurors cannot reach a unanimous verdict that Chauvin is guilty of murdering George Floyd.

local news

ERCOT deserves to be sued

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Here is an item that frustrates and angers me at the same time.

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas is going to argue, according to the Texas Tribune, that it is immune from lawsuits filed by Texans over ERCOT’s handling of the Texas ice and snow storm this past February.

I am frustrated because a Dallas appeals court has ruled that ERCOT, despite being a private non-profit organization, might be protected because it operates as an arm of state government.

I am angry because ERCOT deserves to be sued over the power outages across the state that forced millions of Texans to endure the bitter cold without electricity.

The Tribune reported: “ERCOT has and will continue to assert that it is entitled to sovereign immunity due to its organization and function as an arm of State government,” the organization wrote in a Wednesday court filing requesting to consolidate several of the lawsuits it’s battling.

ERCOT to argue it is immune from winter storm lawsuits | The Texas Tribune

My wife and I were two of those Texans who struggled without power for a couple of days while the outdoor temperature plunged to zero. To make matters worse, the Princeton municipal water supply went kaput for a day because the electricity to its treatment plant also failed.

ERCOT mismanaged the electrical grid, which it operates throughout the state.

Board members resigned. Other board members fired its CEO. The Public Utility Commission resigned en masse. Gov. Greg Abbott has called for a legislative investigation into ERCOT. The Legislature is meeting right now to craft some needed reforms of the state electrical grid.

And ERCOT is going to declare some sort of sovereign immunity?

Amazing.

medical news, national news

Politics: the ‘other contagion’

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

This must be said: The killer coronavirus isn’t the only disease that needs Americans’ attention.

We need to focus to a certain extent on what I consider to be the “other contagion” sweeping through the nation. That is the political battle that just won’t subside over the preventative measures we must take.

This needless and frankly stupid fight had its beginning during the final full year of Donald Trump’s term as president. It arose when Trump downplayed the severity of the illness that had sickened us. He hurled racial epithets at the disease, making reference to its alleged origin in China. He told us the virus would disappear when the temperatures rose in the spring and summer of 2020.

Trump poked fun at political foes, such as Joe Biden, who chose to wear a mask. He didn’t speak to us in terms that defined the COVID-19 virus what it turned out to be: a relentless and highly efficient killer.

Those Trumpkins followed their band director’s lead. We have become infected as well by the politics of what for the life of me I cannot grasp should never have devolved to that level.

Trump said he would adopt a “wartime” footing, only to denigrate the scientists who advised him of the dangers that lurked out there. And again, those followers took him seriously.

They, too, have become part of the problem and not the solution.

The political infection of what should be a united national fight is a disgraceful example of pettiness and petulance. It should have no place in a fight that should transcend partisanship.

President Biden calls mask wearing, social distancing and frequent hand washing the “patriotic” thing to do. If we are going to whip this common enemy, we need to push aside the politics that infects us.

One contagion is enough.

national news

Arguing over ‘infrastructure’

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

So, now President Biden and his Republican “friends” in Congress are arguing over how to define “infrastructure.”

Their disagreement means that GOP members of Congress will oppose what Biden wants to do with $2.25 trillion he is proposing as an “infrastructure” package he wants approved by the Fourth of July.

The GOP defines the terms in the traditional manner: roads, bridges, rail lines, airports, seaports. President Biden considers job creation and the care and well being of Americans as part of an infrastructure plan.

Hmm. Who’s right? Who’s wrong? Who wins the day?

I am going to go with President Biden’s world view.

He wants to pull back some of the corporate tax reduction Congress enacted in 2017. That tax would help pay for the proposal. Republicans don’t want to betray those corporations by forcing them to pay part of the freight.

We are at a stalemate.

Republicans also contend that too little of what Biden wants is going toward those traditional infrastructure needs. They want it scaled back in a big way. President Biden isn’t having any of that.

The package does contain hundreds of billions of dollars for highways, bridges, airport and seaport renovation. It also enhances Internet broadband capability. It also invests in green energy development. Along the way, it intends to put millions of Americans to work.

Is that a bad thing? I don’t think so. It’s a good thing that needs to become law. First, though, we need to get past this disagreement over what constitutes “infrastructure.”

national news

Can we repair this damage?

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

One of the unfortunate consequences of Donald Trump’s term as president has been the damage inflicted among loved ones.

Family members have become split between the pro-Trump and the anti-Trump wings. Not only that, but the anger generated on both sides of the divide has done great harm to relationships that are supposed to be immune from mere political differences.

My family has been spared much of that long term damage. I am an avid anti-Trumper. I have family members who are just as avid pro-Trumpers. They live far away. Therefore, we don’t see them regularly enough or even communicate with sufficient frequency to get wound up too tightly in political discussions.

I have heard plenty of anecdotes about family members clawing at each other — proverbially, of course — over these political differences.

We have crossed an important threshold, though. President Biden vowed to “unify” the country. He is having trouble unifying Democrats and Republicans in Congress, getting them to line up toward a single political goal. Perhaps the president can focus his unification effort on trying to mend fences between factions out here. It well might be that Joe Biden will be less toxic, less divisive, less vitriolic than the guy he defeated this past November.

Therefore, we might see some unity redevelop in households across the land. Or between extended family members who formerly hated each just because they supported Trump … or opposed Trump.

It would be my fervent hope that President Biden’s quest for unity can extend beyond the halls of power and into our living rooms and dining rooms.

Is that too much to ask? I think not.

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