national news

No more POTUS spin in briefing room

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

President Biden made a hefty number of promises while campaigning for the office he won.

One of them involved his commitment to listening to the “science” as it regards the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

So … with that he said he wouldn’t step to the White House briefing room podium and try to speak on issues about which he knows nothing. The pandemic virus continues to rage across the nation. Joe Biden isn’t being seen at the briefing room rostrum talking about the virus, thinking out loud about possible “cures,” such as whether one could inject or ingest cleaning fluid that would wipe out the virus just like that.

Yes, until Jan. 20, we had a president who did that. He is now gone from office. President Biden is letting the scientists and the medical doctors speak on the details of the fight that continues.

I know we shouldn’t relish what should be taken as normal behavior by a president. It is difficult to resist commenting on it given the incessant pattern of lies and misstatements that came from President Biden’s immediate predecessor.

Indeed, it wasn’t as if I could take anything that Donald Trump ever told me seriously. I grew early in his term to disbelieve every single statement that he sputtered out.

The new president isn’t likely to create that credibility misery by saying things out loud that he has no business saying. President Biden will let the scientists speak about matters they studied. They are the folks with knowledge to pass on what they know to be true.

national news

QAnon infects our politics

Staff photo by C.B. Schmelter

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Time for another fusillade against a QAnon-believing member of Congress.

U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor-Greene has become — with justification — the embodiment of what is wrong with many elements of the modern Republican Party.

Taylor-Greene is on record saying some of the most outrageous statements imaginable. Such as this piece of dookey: that the massacre of first- and second-graders at Sandy Hook Elementary School and high schoolers at Marjorie Stoneman High School were made up, that they didn’t happen.

So, what does the House GOP leadership do? It places her sorry a** on the House Education Committee.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has yet to condemn the frothing rambling of this moron. He has given her a forum to further her idiocy on a committee that helps set federal public education policy that affects the very children threatened by the violence that the Georgia Republican lawmaker helped incite on the Sixth of January.

Taylor-Greene is about as un-American, un-democratic, unpatriotic an individual as I ever have witnessed, albeit from a safe distance far away from Capitol Hill and from this idiot’s Georgia congressional district.

Taylor-Greene, though, is far from the only danger to the democracy now serving in the U.S. House. Mo Brooks is another Republican, from Alabama, who stood among the terrorists who stormed Capitol Hill on the Sixth of January. He wasn’t seen smashing windows or beating security officers with flagpoles or hurling fire extinguishers at Capitol Police officers. He did, though, incite violence by cheering the garbage spewed by Donald J. Trump.

I am among those American patriots who is ready to welcome a new day on Capitol Hill. That day already has dawned in the White House, with the expulsion of Donald Trump and the election of Joe Biden. Congress, though, is still infected with morons/imbeciles/nut jobs who have the power to enact laws that affect the rest of us.

I am not proposing to censor or stamp out opinions with which I disagree. I do condemn in the strongest language I can muster the astonishing notions that pour forth from individuals who espouse certifiably insane notions.

Marjorie Taylor-Greene is one of them.

There. I am done with this numbskull. For now!

national news

No end yet to angry rhetoric

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

It was too much to expect a quick fix, an early and immediate end to the angry rhetoric that accompanied the tenure of Donald Trump as president of the United States.

Perhaps it was naive to expect such a miraculous occurrence.

Still, with President Biden’s aggressive approach to dealing with the myriad crises confronting the nation, I had a smidgen of hope that there might be some relief from the white-hot expressions coming from those on the right, the far right and from the political loony bin.

One week into the Biden presidency, I continue to wait for the relief. I fear it’s going to take a long while.

We keep hearing from the QAnon nut jobs who were elected to Congress. The Trumpkin Corps keeps yammering about how their voices will not be stilled, that by golly, more than 74 million of them cast their ballots for The Donald. They ignore the obvious, which is that President Biden collected 81 million-plus votes. And … he rolled up 306 Electoral College votes, the same number Trump pulled in four years earlier; remember, too, that Trump called his victory in 2016 over Hillary Clinton a “landslide,” which of course it was nothing of the sort.

My sincere eternal hope is that we can restore much more civility to our discourse than we have seen and heard during the Trump Era. Donald Trump is vanquished from the White House. His minions in Congress remain in office. They continue to whoop and holler about vote fraud. They bitch about Joe Biden’s aggressive use of executive orders. They gripe about his big and bold ideas to salvage our economy. The lunatics among them keep using social media to harp on conspiracy theories resulting from all the lies that Trump fed them.

The tone will improve. That’s my hope. I await the day I when can call it my expectation.

local news

COVID vaccine awaits

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Somewhere on a tray full of little medicine bottles there is a dose of medicine with my name on it.

I’ll find it Friday. It sits in the Department of Veterans Affairs medical complex in south Dallas. I will arrive Friday afternoon to receive the first of two doses of vaccine aimed at preventing me from contracting a disease that has killed more than 400,000 Americans … and could have taken the life of someone with whom I am quite close.

I had received a recorded phone call Wednesday evening. The VA automated voice told me to call a phone number to make an appointment for the vaccine. I did as I was instructed today.

My wife and I have been on a Collin County wait list. I decided to take the VA up on its offer for a vaccine. My wife is still on the list but we remain hopeful that the county will call soon to let her know that her name has been called and she, too, can be protected against the COVID pandemic virus.

I feel the need to speak kindly of the Department of Veterans Affairs. I enrolled in the VA program in Amarillo about six or seven years ago. The care I received at the Thomas Creek Medical Center in Amarillo was exemplary. We moved from the Panhandle to the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex in 2018 and I transferred my VA care to the Sam Rayburn Medical Center in Bonham. My care continues to be stellar.

I say this because the VA has been panned by some in recent years. I remember, of course, the scandal that rocked the agency during the Obama administration, with veterans dying while awaiting medical attention that required urgent response. We don’t hear of such tragedy these days.

For me, the issue has centered on routine care. I have been fortunate in that I enjoy relatively good health. I have encountered no medical emergencies. I rely on the VA to be my go-to source for medical care.

So, with that I want to declare this small victory in the fight against the pandemic. We still intend to follow the prevention protocols to the letter. This is no time to let up.

local news

Some communities respond beautifully to vaccine effort

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Good news needs sharing, so I’ll do it here.

I keep seeing social media posts from friends in the Texas Panhandle who proclaim they have received both of their COVID-19 vaccine shots. They all live in Amarillo, where we lived for more than two decades before moving to the Metroplex in 2018.

It strikes me that Amarillo has earned the applause it is getting over the way it has handled the vaccine response protocol with which it has been forced to operate.

Amarillo reportedly is No. 1 in the nation in the rate of vaccines. Collin County, where we now live? Not so good, although I understand it is kicking into a higher gear with a new “mega” vaccine center opening up in Plano. My wife and I are on a waiting list. We hope to get called soon by Collin County’s health department.

This brief post is intended to toss some praise at Amarillo for doing a bang-up job in getting its residents inoculated against a virus that has infected a large number of my friends, former colleagues and former news sources. It has taken the lives of many fine individuals who made Amarillo and the Panhandle a special and vibrant place.

Have we turned the corner as a nation? Probably not just yet. I keep hearing that we might be starting the long ride out of the deep, dark woods with this killer virus. More misery lies ahead.

However, I am heartened beyond measure by the good news I am hearing from my old haunts. I enjoy learning about the hurdles my friends are clearing as they continue their own struggle against the virus that continues to haunt us all.

Uncategorized

This isn’t our ‘best’

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Make no mistake, I am not a Pollyanna. I know good bit about our political system, about how we can elect zeroes as well as heroes to our governing bodies.

But, oh brother, we have an astonishing number of numbskulls in Congress, taking power and being handed the opportunity to make laws that govern all of us, not just those who send them to Congress from their various states and congressional districts.

Marjorie Taylor-Greene, I am talking about you.

Rep. Taylor-Greene is the walking, talking embodiment of a domestic demon in our midst. She represents a Georgia congressional district and she is a believer in that QAnon cult that has gripped millions of Americans by the genitals.

She believes Muslims cannot serve legitimately in Congress; she has stated that the Sandy Hook and Parkland, Fla., school massacres were hoaxes; she says President Biden stole the election from Donald Trump; she has called for the summary execution of Democrats.

Yes, she is now among the 535 men and women who serve in the legislative branch of government.

She is a traitor. A potential terrorist. She is certifiably unfit to serve in a public office.

And yet … the folks in her congressional district sent her to Capitol Hill. Astonishing, yes? You know the answer. It is frightening in the extreme.

The news gets even worse. Congress contains others who hold the same view as this idiot. Oh, and the Republican leadership to which she ostensibly answers isn’t calling her, slapping her down, telling her to keep her mouth shut. They stand behind the First Amendment’s free speech clause.

I am a big believer in free speech and in the First Amendment. I also believe free speech should be responsible and shouldn’t be perceived as a threat to our very government.

This member of Congress doesn’t represent our best. She represents the worst of us.

International news

Putin isn’t your pal, Mr. POTUS

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

President Biden and Russian dictator Vladimir Putin chatted the other day.

They reportedly covered — according to a read-out supplied to the media by the White House — a number of topics. They included at least two topics that Donald Trump refused repeatedly to mention to his pal Vlad: the bounty paid to Taliban terrorists who kill American service personnel on t he battlefield and the Russian interference in our elections.

What a change in tone. What a welcome change.

President Biden has made it clear, or so it appears, that he doesn’t plan to be Vladimir Putin’s friend. He wants to assert U.S. moral authority. He wants to engage Russia on nuclear arms reduction. Biden intends to face Russia down on its efforts to subvert Ukraine.

Trump boasted of his deal-making prowess but he never came close to negotiating a nuclear arms reduction deal with his good pal Putin.

Biden enters this relationship with a long history of involvement in foreign policy discussions. Let’s remember that he formerly chaired or was ranking member of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee before he became vice president for two terms serving under President Obama.

Indeed, the White House read-out of the meeting is something the public didn’t get for the past four years during Donald Trump’s term. No one ever knew what the two men talked about, except what Trump would say out loud; and we all know how believable Donald Trump could be, right?

To be sure, the read-out only reveals what the White House wants us to know. However, my own sense is that the Biden administration will deal much more forthrightly and candidly with Vladimir Putin than the Trump administration ever did.

President Biden has laid down an important marker at least by challenging Putin on the hideous report of the bounties he paid for the lives of American service personnel.

Don’t let up, Mr. President.

environmental news

Climate change: existential threat

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

President Biden has blasted his way out of the chute determined to make good on proclamations he made along the campaign trail.

He has a pandemic with which to deal. He vows to restore our worldwide alliances. Biden vows to boost our economy with a titanic stimulus package. Oh, and he wants to tackle climate change head-on, full throttle.

I want to explore briefly the climate change matter.

In one of his first acts as president, Biden signed an executive order returning the United States to the worldwide Paris Climate Accord, from which Donald Trump pulled this nation.

Then he named John Kerry the head of a newly created position, special envoy on climate change. Kerry comes to this task with an impressive personal and professional record: combat veteran of the Vietnam War, senator from Massachusetts, secretary of state during the second term of the Barack Obama administration.

He now takes on the role of climate change envoy to communicate with the world on policies enacted by the Biden administration  dealing with climate change.

President Biden is  taking precisely the opposite approach to climate change than the one articulated by Donald Trump. Biden calls climate change an “existential threat” to the nation; Trump calls it a “hoax.” It isn’t a hoax. It’s the real thing. It is harming us tangibly. It poses a threat to Earth and to our ability over the long term to continue to thrive, let alone survive, on the only planet we can call home.

Biden wants to suspend oil and natural gas leases. He intends to re-energize — no pun intended — efforts to develop renewable energy sources. The president plans to restore the tougher air quality rules and  regulations that Donald Trump rescinded.

John Kerry doesn’t take on this task peering through sparkly glasses. He is realistic about the threat. Kerry said recently that even if we reduce carbon emissions today to “zero,” we still might be unable to reverse the effects of climate change on Earth’s environment.

* * *

I must add an important caveat to what I hope is a concerted effort to stem to effect of climate change. Someone will have to explain to me how our military establishment will operate the equipment it uses in a climate-friendly manner. Our jets, naval vessels, and our vast array of land vehicles — tanks, trucks, fighting vehicles, armored personnel carriers — require fossil fuels to operate. If we can find our way to balance those needs with strategies that attack the existential threat many of us believe is out there … then we might be able to save the world.

I want to give President Biden a push in the direction he needs to go to attack climate change.

Uncategorized

Trump likely to escape … again!

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Virtually all of me wants the Senate to convict Donald Trump of “incitement of insurrection.”

No matter how much I want to will the Senate to do the right thing, political reality is staring all of us in the puss. Conviction requires 17 Senate Republicans to join their Democratic colleagues in convicting Trump.

A conviction won’t remove him from the presidency. A clear majority of voters did that on Nov. 3 when we elected Joe Biden to be our next president. Oh, I am so happy to among the 81.2 million Americans who spoke loudly and clearly.

Let  us face reality, though.

Donald Trump still commands the attention of too many Senate Republicans, who fear the Trumpster Corps scattered across the land. The Trump cultists are rattling their proverbial sabers, threatening senators with dire political consequences if they vote to convict their guy, The Donald, the former Liar in Chief, the huckster, the con man, the phony, the fraud … stop me before I run out of breath.

Only five GOP senators voted this week that the trial is constitutional. They are right. The 45 Rs who stuck together are wrong. The Constitution doesn’t require a president to be in office for the House  to impeach him. Indeed,  the House did impeach Trump — for the second time! — just a week before he left office.

Now he is gone. The aim of the Senate is to secure a conviction and then to cast a simple-majority vote to deny Trump from ever seeking public office.

Here,  though, is another reality. Donald Trump will not be elected president ever again! His sounding the bugle for the terrorists who stormed Capitol Hill on the Sixth of January sealed his political fate.

If only the Senate could find enough Republicans with sufficient courage to convict him. I fear the worst outcome, that Donald Trump will skate through this latest Senate trial.

State news

Make ’em wear helmets!

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I know this won’t happen, but it won’t deter me from saying it anyway.

It is that I would hope the 2021 Texas Legislature would rethink a decision that an earlier Legislature made. It rescinded a law that required motorcycle riders – such as those who drive them – to wear helmets.

The 1995 Legislature approved the rescission, which then was signed by the state’s newly elected governor, George W. Bush.

It is a decision that I am certain that many Texans regret. Why? Because they have suffered grievous, traumatic head injury that would have been prevented had they been wearing protective headgear.

Now, of course the Legislature built in some safeguards against madness aboard motorcycles. It required children to wear helmets. It also requires licensed motorcyclists to carry insurance policies that cover a part of their hospitalization. Oh, but here’s the thing: The amount totals $10,000. Do you have any idea how quickly an injured motorcyclist can burn through 10 grand?

Just like – snap! – that. That makes me wonder how much value can be had in such a pittance of a policy.

The 1995 Legislature was feeling its Wheaties, as I recall, when it decided to pull back its mandatory helmet law. I argued vociferously at the time that the Legislature shouldn’t touch the law. I had that argument with many proud, independent Texans who actually disagreed with my view that helmets saved lives and saved Texans millions of dollars in insurance payment increases.

My favorite argument against helmet laws came from a guy in Orange County, Texas, who told me in the early 1990s that he had to feel the “wind in my hair” as he drove his motorcycle. I pray the fellow all these years later still has a head of hair and is still alive to feel it blowing in the breeze.

My wife and I spend time in our pickup driving around Texas; we haul our RV to state parks across our state. We do not exceed 60 mph while pulling our RV, so we get passed continually by motor vehicles along our highways. So help me, as God is my witness, I cringe when a helmet-less motorcyclist whizzes by at some untold speed. I pray he or she stays safe.

We both have a friend, a former colleague of mine, who some years ago got a phone call that every parent dreads. Her son had been involved in a motorcycle wreck in Amarillo. He suffered grievous wounds … to his head. He suffered irreparable brain damage. He lost cognitive skill, the ability to speak clearly and to the best of my knowledge is still living, albeit with state-funded assistance.

On the flip side, I once served with a guy in the Army who told me in 1970 about a terrible motorcycle wreck he suffered in his home state of Indiana. He was alive at that moment to recall what happened. Why? Because he was wearing a helmet at the time of the crash.

“The helmet,” he told me, “saved my life.” I would presume as well that it saved his fellow Indiana taxpayers a ton of money.

BLOGGER’S NOTE: This blog was posted originally on KETR-FM’s website.

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