State news

Texas AG sues city and county for toughening rules? Weird!

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Surely I am not the only Texas resident who finds this legal squabble disturbing.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has sued Austin and Travis County for — and this is pretty strange — invoking get-tough rules designed to protect residents from getting a killer virus.

Paxton says Austin Mayor Steve Adler and Travis County Judge Andy Brown lack the authority to go beyond the order issued by Gov. Greg Abbott.

But … wait! Adler and Brown are concerned about the pandemic outbreak that is occurring in their community, so they are taking measures to fight it. Isn’t that a good thing? Isn’t that what local officials are charged to do?

According to the Texas Tribune:

Paxton filed a petition for temporary injunction and a temporary restraining order in Travis County District Court targeting orders made by Austin Mayor Steve Adler and Travis County Judge Andy Brown. Citing an increase in COVID-19 cases, they announced that dine-in food and beverage service must be restricted indoors and outdoors from 10:30 p.m. to 6 a.m., starting Thursday and ending at 6 a.m. Sunday. The measure did allow drive-thru, curbside pick-up, take out, or delivery services.

“Mayor Adler and Judge Brown do not have the authority to flout Gov. [Greg] Abbott’s executive orders by shutting down businesses in Travis County and our state’s capital city,” said Paxton in a statement. “The fact that these two local leaders released their orders at night and on the eve of a major holiday shows how much contempt they have for Texans and local businesses.”

Huh? Eh? What the … ?

Is this another one of those Republican vs. Democrat disputes where one side places greater emphasis on safety measures than the other side? If that is the case, then we are in a hell of a pickle as we try to fight this damn disease.

national news

Obama 2.0? OK, what’s wrong with that?

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

We’re hearing from right-wing media pundits and other critics of President-elect Biden that his Cabinet and top staffers comprise too many folks from the Obama administration.

Yes, I have expressed a concern about that, but I have to ask: Why is that necessarily a bad thing?

Biden served as vice president for President Obama’s two successful terms. He knows the players who comprised his team. Biden knows their strengths. He wants to parlay those strengths toward building a team of his own.

The Obama administration, let us remember, took office in the midst of the Great Recession. The nation’s economy was in free fall, it was collapsing and President Obama needed to act immediately to help rescue it from permanent ruin.

The team he assembled, along with Joe Biden, got the job done.

So, the new president wants to rely on their knowledge, their experience and their skill to help him restore a nation beset by new economic trouble and, oh  yes, that damn pandemic.

That’s OK with me.

legal news

Content of character: does it still count?

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Make no mistake that I likely would feel differently were I of African-American or Latino or Asian descent. I am none of those.

Having laid that predicate down, I want to engage in the discussion over who President-elect Biden should select as the nation’s next attorney general.

I practically jumped out of my shoes the other day when I heard an African-American commentator, Jonathan Capehart, say out loud that the three individuals Biden is believed to be considering as AG are too white for his taste. Capehart wants more “diversity” among the finalists.

Hmm. Let’s examine this briefly. The three people Biden reportedly is pondering are U.S. District Judge Merrick Garland, former deputy U.S. Attorney General Sally Yates and U.S. Sen. Doug Jones. They all possess exemplary legal credentials. They also all have committed through their careers to advancing the cause of civil rights.

Their only “shortcoming” is that they aren’t people of color.

President-elect Biden has kept his pledge to nominate executive branch team members who reflect the nation. Has loaded the Cabinet with and top-level staffers with African-Americans, Latinos, Asian-Americans, women; my goodness, he even has selected an openly gay man to serve in the Cabinet.

President Obama nominated Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court, only to have his nomination blocked in 2016 by Senate Republicans who wanted to wait for the presidential election outcome that year. Garland has been a champion for minority rights, for gay rights and has staked out a center-left course while serving on the federal bench.

Sally Yates has demonstrated her own commitment to fair and impartial justice as a deputy AG, striving to be sensitive to minority Americans’ concerns over whether the justice system was loaded against them.

Doug Jones, who lost his bid for re-election to the Senate from Alabama in 2020, served as a federal prosecutor and obtained the conviction of the Klansmen who blew up the Birmingham, Ala., church in 1963 that killed four precious African-American girls; it was one of the most notorious hate crimes of the 20th century. He, too, has earned his spurs in fighting for minority rights.

Is it essential that the next AG be a person of color? No. It isn’t. It is essential that the next attorney general refrain from engaging in partisan politics and administer justice dispassionately and in accordance with the law.

I want to remind everyone of what Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial that day in 1963. He spoke of his “dream” that one day black Americans can be judged by “content of their character” rather than “the color of their skin.”

Shouldn’t that noble goal apply to any American?

national news

A new year will dawn; may it bring hope

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

The sun will rise at 7:29 a.m. Friday, although it is unlikely we’ll see it peek over the eastern horizon, given the crappy weather we’re having in North Texas.

It doesn’t matter. The darkness will give way to the light (more or less) and a new year will have arrived.

We all feel the same way about 2020. It sucked out loud. The pandemic continues to bring untold misery to millions of Americans and others around the world; it has killed more than 340,000 of us. And the president of the United States, Donald Trump, blew it off publicly. He told us early in the year that the pandemic is “under control.” It damn sure isn’t!

Our nation’s economy collapsed. Millions of Americans lost their jobs. Trump kept gloating about the stock market’s rise. Oh, the jobs lost? He spoke next to nothing about the suffering and strife occurring in homes throughout the land.

Then came that election. Americans sent a message of their own to Donald Trump. It was, if you’ll accept this generalization, simply this: Donald, we are sick of your policy-by-Twitter, your insults, your boorish behavior, your incessant lies and the utter incompetence you demonstrate daily about how to run the government; we want a return to the old normal.

Step right up, President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. A weary nation awaits your ascent to the pinnacle of power.

We’ve got 19 days to go before Biden takes over. He has selected a governing team that he says resembles the nation he was elected to lead. It is full of ethnic and racial minorities, of men and women. It is full of individuals with prior government experience and an appreciation and understanding of its complexity, which to my mind is the most important component of the government that is taking shape.

And so … we commence the new year with a sense of hope. We must maintain our patience and vigilance as the pandemic battle continues. Those vaccines are being administered. The crisis won’t vanish any time soon.

The new president has made a solemn vow to ramp up that fight, to wage all-out war against the pandemic. I await the result of that fight and the day we can declare victory against this enemy.

I am not foolish enough to believe that declaration will come during this upcoming calendar year. However, I am enough of an optimist to believe that we are going to make a significant advance toward that end. May we start advancing right now.

Happy new year!

media news, national news

Awaiting a new blog year, too

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Much of the world is awaiting the tick of midnight and the dawn of a new year.

A good bit of our good Earth already has welcomed 2021. Not yet in the U.S. of A.

I look forward to the new year as an American patriot, a father, grandfather, husband, brother, cousin and uncle who worries about the health and well being of his extended and immediate family.

Moreover, I look ahead to 2021 as a full-time blogger who spends a lot of time commenting on issues of the day. Yes, it is clear to everyone that Donald Trump has dominated this blog. He has consumed much of my waking hours as I look for ways to provide some context to the conduct of this individual.

Even though Jan. 1 is just around the corner, Donald Trump will remain as president until the 20th of the month. Then he steps aside and President Joe Biden takes the reigns of power. I will continue to provide comment on this blog on those issues and on how the new president deals with them.

I cannot offer a pledge cast in stone on the tone and tenor of this blog, but my sincere hope — and that’s all it can be — is that I will be able to look more constructively at the actions of our new administration.

Donald Trump was a lost cause in that regard from before he took office four years ago. He is unfit for the office. Trump remains an impeached president. I consider him to be a danger to our system of government. I have said so over the years and I make no apology for anything I have written about him.

However, at noon on Jan. 20 Donald Trump becomes irrelevant. He will tweet this and that. I intend to ignore his blathering, bloviating and bluster. I also intend to focus instead on how President Biden intends to repair the damage that Trump has left for him.

I hope to awake in the morning feeling refreshed and ready to go. The old  year really sucked, man. The new year? We have nowhere to go but straight up.

national news

Well, Mitch? What about ‘need’?

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I am not a particularly avid fan of Sen. Bernie Sanders, the democratic socialist from Vermont, the independent who pretends to be a Democrat.

However, grouchy ol’ Bernie has posted a message on Facebook that I must share here. I cannot express the outrage over Sen. Mitch McConnell’s duplicity any better.

Take it away, Bernie:

All of a sudden Mitch McConnell is “worried” that someone in America might get a $2,000 check “who doesn’t need it.”
Funny. He had no problem giving a $1.4 billion tax break to Charles Koch and his family with a net worth of $113 billion.
He had no problem giving a $560 million tax break to Sheldon Adelson, the casino tycoon who is worth $34.3 billion.
He had no problem giving a $104 million tax refund to Amazon over the past three years combined after it made $30 billion in profits.
He had no problem giving a $1 trillion tax break to the top one percent and profitable corporations.
Tens of millions of Americans have lost their jobs. They have lost their incomes. They have depleted their life savings. They are going hungry.
And they are scared to death that they will be evicted from their homes.
I say to Senator McConnell: Start worrying about the people in this country who are hurting and not just your billionaire campaign contributors.
Stop blocking legislation from coming to the floor which would provide a $2,000 direct payment that the working class of this country desperately needs.
Let the Senate vote, Mitch!
national news

Who is the real ‘enemy of the people’?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

The New York Daily News published an editorial this week that peels the bark off Donald Trump and his infantile effort to subvert the nation’s democratic process.

It begins this way:

Nearly four years ago, Donald Trump swore an oath to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” Trump now violates that oath on multiple fronts as he continues to insist he won an election he decisively lost, toys with disrupting the Jan. 6 count by Congress of the Electoral College tally — and lets his administration withhold vital cooperation from President-elect Joe Biden’s team in the pivotal closing weeks.

Editorial: Enemy of the people? Donald Trump seems dangerously determined to make Joe Biden’s job difficult (msn.com)

The Daily News takes Trump to task for the manner in which he is resisting, fighting, scrambling fecklessly to cling to the power he lost when Americans voted in significant numbers to reject him as president. He doesn’t deserve a second term in the eyes of a majority of American voters.

To think, too, that Donald Trump had the balls to declare that the media are the “enemy of the people” because they reported the unvarnished truth to Americans who were getting nothing but lies from their head of state.

Donald J. Trump is the real enemy.

national news

Let’s look closely at alleged treason, OK?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Social media memes have this way of occasionally telling us startling truths about issues of the day.

For instance, a meme showed up on my Facebook news feed this morning that offered some advice to the nation looking at possible crimes committed by Donald Trump, the outgoing president of the United States.

It says we should examine “possible treason as thoroughly” as the nation investigated whether a previous president was, um, pleasured by a White House intern.

President Clinton got impeached for his dalliance with a young woman, but not until a special prosecutor revealed his findings while examining other alleged misdeeds involving the president.

Fast-forward to the present day. Donald Trump is being investigated for a wide variety of alleged crimes. The probe is occurring in state jurisdictions. The allegations go far more deeply than what Bill Clinton did more than two decades ago. They involve possible treason and betrayal of the nation’s security … by the president!

Is that worth the time, the effort and, yes, the expense of a thorough investigation?

Yes. I believe it is.

local news

Is right-wing wackiness returning?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

The phone rang the other morning, so I answered it and it was someone I used to know a long time ago back when we both worked in the Texas Panhandle.

My friend worked for a prominent Amarillo politician and called to pick my (already picked-over) brain about the state of politics and the media that cover it in Panhandle.

She offered a chilling summation of what she believes is occurring there: a resurgence of the conspiracy theory, far-right-wing wackiness of the Republican Party. Bear mind, too, that the individual with whom I spoke worked for a doctrinaire, conservative Republican. She is concerned that the nut jobs who once belonged to the John Birch Society and hung signs calling for the United States to pull out of the United Nations are gaining traction once again in the Texas Panhandle.

Well …

After talking to my friend, who is an astute political observer, I am beginning to worry about the state of political play in the place I called home for more than 23 years.

Indeed, the region’s congressman, Republican Mac Thornberry, is retiring in just a few days. He will be succeeded by Ronny Jackson, the retired U.S. Navy admiral, one-time White House physician and current Donald Trump acolyte who adheres to the idiocy that President-elect Joe Biden “stole” the 2020 election from his man Trump.

Therein lies the apparent heart of what should concern true-blue Republicans who sit in power throughout the Panhandle. The Party of Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan has now become the Party of Donald Trump. Are you … kidding me?

Are they going to continue to allow their party to be hijacked by the likes of those who swill the Kool-Aid offered by the carnival barker/con man/charlatan Donald Trump?

If they do, then by golly we might be in even more trouble than my friend fears is headed this way.

business news

737 Max? Not just yet

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Boeing and at least one U.S. air carrier are delighted with themselves.

They say they have fixed the mysterious problems associated with the 737 Max, the jetliner that crashed twice nearly two years ago, killing hundreds of passengers.

It was determined that the Max had a computer engineering problem that caused the plane to plummet to Earth. Boeing grounded the aircraft while engineers toiled to fix the problem.

The Max is flying again.

Well, you are welcome to consider me as one American who is delighted that he has no plans to fly commercially in the immediate or medium-range future. The COVID pandemic is enough of a reason to stay grounded.

The idea of climbing aboard a 737 Max — with its attendant troubles — just solidifies my desire to remain on the ground.

I wish American Airlines and Boeing well as they resume flying the troublesome airplane. I just am not going to book a flight on one of those birds anytime soon.

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