national news

Lesson learned from post-ACA debacle

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

President Biden, or more likely his White House team, has learned the lesson from an earlier legislative triumph that turned into a political debacle.

When Biden served as vice president in the Obama administration, he and President Obama’s team ramrodded through Congress a monumental legislative achievement: the Affordable Care Act. Biden famously whispered in Obama’s ear that its enactment was a “big f***ing deal.” And it was.

Obama then failed to sell the benefits of the ACA to the public. What happened then? Republicans took control of Congress in the 2010 midterm election, an event that President Obama described as a “shellacking.”

Fast-forward to this year. Biden has scored another huge victory with a massive $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill. Its aim is to help Americans suffering economically from the pandemic that still grips the nation.

But … the president, Vice President Kamala Harris and their spouses are fanning out for as long as it takes to talk directly to Americans about why this package also is a big … deal. They want to avoid the thumping that President Obama took after scoring a big win with the ACA. The 2022 midterms are coming up in short order.

I wish them well.

Joe Biden, national news

Experience matters

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

This needs to be repeated — with emphasis.

Joseph R. Biden brings important experience to the presidency that was sorely lacking in the individual he succeeded, Donald J. Trump.

I’ve talked already on this blog about whether President Biden will be able to shepherd an infrastructure bill through Congress. My hunch is that he stands a much greater chance of doing so than Donald Trump ever had. Why? Because Biden is a creature of Congress and Trump is, well, someone with zero government experience.

That kind of thing matters when a president chooses to operate the complicated machinery called the federal government.

Trump trumpeted his business experience as a selling point while winning election in 2016. I’ll set aside that he lied about his success as a business mogul. I believe we have learned that Trump’s business record at best is considered, um, checkered. He spent his entire professional life propping his own image up. Trump never grasped the concept of teamwork, which is an essential element of governing with a co-equal branch of government, the men and women who work on Capitol Hill.

Joe Biden, on the other hand, knows the Senate well. He was a major part of that legislative body for 36 years. He chaired key Senate committees. Biden developed first-name relationships with foreign leaders. He worked well with Republicans. He is fluent in the legislative jargon that senators and House members use among themselves.

This is the kind of experience that should serve President Biden well as he seeks to push an agenda forward. Trump’s experience in business, in show biz, in self-aggrandizement and self-enrichment provided a prescription for failure.

I consider myself a good-government progressive. Therefore, I intend to look carefully over time at how well our government functions with a president who knows which levers to pull and which buttons to push.

State news

Gov. Allen West? Eek!

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

So help me, I do not know what I am likely to do if Allen West decides to challenge Greg Abbott in the 2022 Texas Republican gubernatorial primary.

I do not intend to leave Texas. However, this state remains a ruby-red Republican state, which suggests to me that whoever the GOP nominates for governor next year stands a good chance of being elected.

West is a bomb-throwing, fire-breathing, reckless and feckless Texas Republican Party chairman. He has lived in Texas for just a few years. He once served in Congress, representing a Florida district for a single term before he got beat for re-election. Then he moved Texas in search of a political job. He found one at the state GOP headquarters.

The guy is a kook. He’s nuttier than a fruitcake. He has said Texans should have the right to vote on whether to secede from the Union. Good, ever-lovin’ grief!

Allen West floats secession after Supreme Court rejects Texas election challenge – Washington Times

He now is being talked about as a possible primary challenger to Gov. Abbott, who is thinking openly about running for president in 2024.

I long have harbored suspicions about the Texas GOP. They were more or less confirmed when it elected a wacko as its chairman. Now he aspires to higher office? Ugh! I have hoped for a return to sanity in this once-great political party. I sense that it will remain certifiably nutty as we enter the next political season.

As for Abbott, well, he’s disappointed me, too. He recently began lying about President Biden’s immigration policy, suggesting it was luring more migrants into Texas who were bringing COVID infection with them. An Abbott-West primary fight would present a miserable choice for Texas Republican voters. But … that ain’t my decision to make.

I am going to try to keep an open mind about how the GOP primary plays out. I also can hope that Allen West will decide against running for governor. We already have too many Republican fire breathers occupying statewide office.

local news

Yes on toll roads!

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

There once was a time when I was a non-fan of toll highways.

That was before we moved from the Texas Panhandle to the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex. We moved from a part of the state where toll roads are as much of a four-letter word as “state income tax” to another part of the state where toll roads are part of living.

I mention this because the words “infrastructure improvement” have re-entered the national political debate. Donald Trump talked about investing in roads and bridges during his term as president, but nothing ever came of it. Now it’s Joe Biden’s turn to bring it up. Will it happen? We’ll see.

President Biden does have legislative experience that Donald Trump lacked. Therefore, we well might see the president of the United States actually get involved in negotiating with senators and House members to craft a deal that helps shore up our roads and bridges.

Texas invests plenty in its roads and highways already. A good part of the money that pays for it comes from drivers such as me, who travels occasionally along a toll road to get from my home in Collin County to, say, over yonder in Dallas, Denton or Tarrant County. To get from here to there and back again, we pay a toll.

Here’s the good news. I don’t have to rifle through a compartment to find change. I have this Toll Tag sticker on the windshield of my vehicle. We drive through a toll station, a camera takes a picture of the tag and it debits an account I set up with the North Texas Transit Authority. It’s easy, man!

Toll roads provide an equitable system of paying to keep our highways operating smoothly. If you’re gonna drive on ’em, then you gotta pay to keep ’em smooth. That’s only fair.

medical news, national news, State news

It isn’t ‘mislabeled!’

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Texas two U.S. senators, Republicans Ted Cruz and John Cornyn, voted against the COVID-19 relief bill, they say, because it is “mislabeled.”

They contend that it is too full of money that seeks to satisfy liberal/progressive interest groups and political activists.

Pardon my Greek, but these two alleged legislative representatives are full of sh**. 

Is the bill the perfect remedy to help Americans back from the pandemic precipice? No. However, it does contain sufficient help for those who have suffered grievous economic hardship. Moreover, it sets aside money to continue the development of vaccines that are rolling out as we sit here that will help inoculate more of us against the virus.

How many ways do we have to explain how this process works to the ideologues/demagogues who populate the supposedly loyal opposition to President Biden?

I keep hearing the canard about how only 9 percent of the money goes directly to COVID-19 relief. That’s another crock of fecal matter. CNN.com provides a link that explains what is in the bill.

What’s in the Covid relief bill – CNNPolitics

If you look at the items lined out, you will understand that the word “directly” is critical. I concede that not all the funds go directly to aid with COVID-related relief. However, much of the money serves the purpose, such as nutrition aid, or housing aid, or tax credits for individuals and families.

The impact of the pandemic has been sweeping and it has hit Americans thoroughly. That is why President Biden insisted that Congress should “go big” in seeking relief for Americans. He settled on $1.9 trillion in relief. I get that it isn’t cheap. However, I am willing to endorse this notion because of my belief that the federal government should answer the call when emergency strikes.

Last time I gave it any thought, I consider the killer pandemic a first-rank national emergency that needs a proportional response.

Sens. Cruz and Cornyn — and the rest of their GOP colleagues in both congressional chambers — are on the wrong side of this debate.

local news

Stay the pandemic course

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

When does a year seem like a lifetime, or even several lifetimes?

When it has been consumed by disease, death and dysfunction.

So it has been around here for the past year living under the shadow of the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s only been a year but to my sensibility it seems as though it’s been with us for a whole lot longer than that.

Too much has happened in Texas during that year, but it’s worth remembering how it tracked here, just as it has throughout much of the rest of the nation.

In just one year 45,000 or so Texans have died from the virus. Do you remember when the president of the United States told us when it would “disappear, like magic” when we had just a handful of reported cases? Yeah, it didn’t work out that way.

Our governor, Greg Abbott, was whipsawed by politics as he sought to find a strategy to help us battle this disease. He placed statewide mandates, closing businesses, ordering us to stay away from each other, ordering us to wear masks when we went indoors. Then he relaxed those orders. Oops! Then the virus spiraled upward, forcing Abbott to put the orders back into effect.

Ahh, but now we’re back to opening up again. Abbott says Texans know enough to follow the guidelines set by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, that we don’t need to be told to wear masks while indoors. Actually, too many of us still need to be told to do the right thing. With that I am going to hope that Abbott hasn’t jumped the gun prematurely yet again.

The Texas Tribune has published a fascinating chronology over the past year, charting the ups and downs of the virus as it has affected Texas.

COVID-19 killed more than 45,000 in Texas in the last year | The Texas Tribune

Where do we go from here? That remains to be seen. We’re getting vaccinated now at an increasing rate. My wife and I are among the Texans who have been “fully vaccinated” and for that we are grateful. Are we shucking our masks and standing shoulder-to-shoulder with strangers at the grocery store? Hardly. We’re continuing to do what we have been advised to do for the past year and our intention is to keep doing it until we are certain the coronavirus has been eradicated.

The Texas Legislature is meeting for the next several weeks to deal with pressing issues of the day, chief among them is electrical infrastructure that needs repair. You remember that monstrous winter storm, yes?

Legislators also must chart a healthier path for Texans moving forward. Yes, there remains a state option to complement the federal strategy being implemented by President Biden and his medical team of experts.

Overall, though, is the belief among us all that we shouldn’t lose faith, nor should we lose patience as we continue to fight through this pandemic. It’s not over. I will not say for certain whether it’s close to being over. We might still have to live through yet another lifetime to welcome that day.

NOTE: This blog was published initially on KETR.org, affiliated with KETR-FM public radio at Texas A&M University/Commerce.

entertainment news

Just like dear ol’ Dad

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Oh, how I hate acknowledging this, but I must do so.

I am becoming my father.

A Facebook acquaintance of mine noted overnight that he is “getting old,” based on his supposed ignorance of the new artists being honored at this past weekend’s Grammy Awards. Hey, I feel his pain.

Indeed, I am beginning to feel more like my late Dad all the time, as I, too, know next to nothing about the music that is filling young people’s ears these days.

OK, I know who Beyonce is. Same for Taylor Swift. I know the name Billie Eilish. Beyond that, well … I’m lost.

Dad was the same way when my sisters and I began listening to our version of popular music back in the old days. He couldn’t understand our fascination with The Beatles, the Beach Boys, the Stones, the Dave Clark Five, the Temptations, the Four Tops … and on and on. I cannot leave Elvis out. Dad was a Big Band kinda guy. He loved Bennie Goodman, Jimmy and Tommy Dorsey, Buddy Rich.

Those acts of my youth I just mentioned? Their music is still relevant even today. It’s because the 1960s was a very special era in so many ways. The music holds up and I venture to guess that many of today’s artists look back at the contributions of those old fogies with some semblance of awe. If they don’t, well, shame on ’em.

I’ll share this one tiny example of what I mean. My son and I attended a Paul McCartney concert in 2019; we were among 50,000 or so fans packed into Globe Life Stadium in Arlington, Texas. The opening number? “A Hard Day’s Night,” recorded by The Beatles in 1964. I could see boys and girls all around me singing right along with Sir Paul; they knew the words to a song that was penned perhaps before their parents were born!

Dad departed this good Earth in 1980. I cannot even imagine how he would react to this 21st-century version of popular music. I know, though, that as much as I have tried to become my own man as I have entered my eighth decade of life, some things do remind me that at least one level, I am just like dear ol’ Dad.

Donald Trump

When will GOP wake up?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

What in the name of all that is holy is it going to take to get the Republican members of Congress to realize that they took an oath to defend the nation, not to defend the reputation of a disgraced former GOP president?

Some of the GOP congressional honchos traipse down to Mar-a-Lago to tee it up with Donald Trump. Meanwhile, back at their place of employment — Washington, D.C. — the man who succeeded Trump, President Joe Biden, is trying to craft a legislative agenda that works for the nation he was elected to govern.

Biden took office wanting to unify the country gripped in the throes of a killer pandemic. Drug companies have developed vaccines and now are flooding pharmacies and government mega-vaccination centers with tens of millions of doses of vaccine to inoculate Americans.

Democrats are on board with President Biden. Republicans aren’t. They continue to spew the crap that comes from Donald Trump’s pie hole, speaking for the disgraced ex-president as if whatever he says is actually relevant. It isn’t. He isn’t relevant.

It frustrates me to no end to watch the president cobble together alliances within his own party but falling short in his efforts to bridge the still-gaping divide between the Democratic and Republican parties. All the while there is that chatter about Trump wanting to retain some position of power and influence within the Republican Party.

Let me be among those who hold a contrary view of Donald Trump’s future. He is toast. I am getting that nagging feeling in my gut that there might be an indictment or three in Donald Trump’s future. The men and women who continue to march to No. 45’s cadence will have to look elsewhere for actual political leadership.

They won’t have to look far. It resides in the White House.

local news

Puppy Tales, Part 89: The reaction is clear

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Toby the Puppy is the first pooch to join our family in … ever! We had a couple of dogs but they didn’t stay long enough to become assimilated into our household.

My wife and I, therefore, became pretty fluent in kitty speak over many decades of welcoming cats into our home. It has taken a bit of time to learn puppy speak, but Toby the Puppy makes it a bit easier.

Lately, he has adopted a new way of communicating whether he is ready to embark somewhere with his parents, my wife and me.

What does he do? Well, we will say, “Do you want to go for a walk, Puppy?” If he does, then he runs for any one of about six or seven toys scattered around the house. He grabs the toy and shakes it violently. That means, in puppy speak, that “yes, I want to go for a walk.”

He will do the same thing if he is ready to go for a ride in the truck. Or if he is ready to see our granddaughter Emma when she comes over for some play time.

We already are aware of how he recognizes certain words, such as treat, or walk, or Emma. We don’t say those words until we are prepared for his enthusiastic response. Plus, we don’t want to let him down if we let those words slip out at the wrong time.

However, our puppy has become very adept at letting us know when we say the right word at the right time.

national news

Social media ‘war’ to end?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

The thought occurs to me that President Biden’s election in 2020 has produced an anticipated but highly underreported positive effect.

During the term of Donald J. Trump, there appeared — anecdotally, at least — to be a serious spike in destroyed friendships and other relationships among longtime friends and significant others.

I lost a few friends during the past four years over intense political differences. I am not proud of whatever I might have contributed to those falling-outs.

Trump is gone from the White House. Probably forever. Joe Biden’s term has begun and I am going to suggest right here that we might see a serious leveling off of the kind of animus we witnessed or heard about during Trump’s term as president.

That is a good thing. Don’t you think?

President Biden is a student of the school that suggests that political adversaries need not be enemies. Trump didn’t operate at that level. He seemingly has few political friends beyond the cultists who pledge that goofy fealty to the man. But, oh brother, he has developed more than his fair share of political enemies. Trump also has dished out the enemy label as well.

Biden rolls differently. He cultivated a reputation as a U.S. senator who was able to reach across to Republicans. He brought those decades of Senate experience to the White House as vice president in the Obama administration.

My strong sense is that as president, Joe Biden will soothe the roiling waters that have swamped friendships and spoiled many family dinners across the land. I cannot presume that would be his strategy. It’s just an effect of the kind of leadership skill he has demonstrated over his many years in public service.

Do I expect a restoration of my lost friendships? I am not holding my breath. I do expect there to be a diminution of the friendship fracturing moving ahead during the presidency of Joe Biden.

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