local news

Mayor Chacon asked: What do you want me to do?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

The picture you see attached to this blog well might contain the face of change in the town my wife and I call home.

She is Princeton, Texas, Mayor Brianna Chacon. She is brand new on the job, having just been elected on Nov. 3 in a special election to fill out the remainder of a former mayor’s term.

I am preparing a lengthy profile of Chacon for KETR-FM public radio, but I want to share something that occurred today at the end of a conversation she and I had sitting under a shelter in front of the neighborhood Starbucks coffee shop. It’s worth mentioning because I cannot recall a political leader ever asking me this question.

It was this: As a  resident and taxpayer of Princeton, what do you want me to do as mayor?

I told her two things that came to my mind. One was that I want to see tangible progress in the development of what passes for Princeton’s downtown business district. Take my word for it: There ain’t much there. I mentioned that in my many years on this good Earth, I have discovered that successful cities have at least one thing in common: a thriving, vibrant downtown district. The second thing dealt with the amount of money my wife and I spend for water; it’s too great a price. I told the mayor we pay too much each month during the summer to water our lawn.

OK, none of this is a terribly huge deal. Except that the young mayor, who has yet to preside over her first city council meeting, seemed quite sincere in asking me what I expect of her.

I want this blog post to reflect how much I appreciate her asking that question of someone to whom she now answers. This community is full of thousands of diverse opinions of those who live here. We all want different things from our city government.

I hope she’s taking copious notes.

Good luck to you, Mme. Mayor.

environmental news

Welcome back, John Kerry

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Good show, Mr. President-elect.

Joe Biden has delivered on a key campaign promise, which was to re-elevate the worldwide climate crisis to the top of the presidential administration’s priority list.

Biden has named former Secretary of State John Kerry as head of a climate change post within the National Security Council. This is a clear signal that President-elect Biden intends to put Kerry to work full time on searching for solutions to the worldwide crisis that, indeed, poses a national security threat of the first order.

I am delighted (a) to see John Kerry brought back into public service and (b) to know that Joe Biden intends to follow through on a key campaign promise to devote sufficient energy and emotional capital to the world’s most glaring international threat.

Kerry made climate change a key focus of his time as secretary of state, seeking to persuade his peers around the world of the need to curb the impact of carbon emissions and other human-caused effects on the world’s climate.

There can be no doubt that the climate is changing. There also should be no doubt that human activity has led to an acceleration of that change. I won’t buy into the notion that the change is part of some natural epochal cycle over which we have no control. We must seek ways to do whatever is humanly possible to stem the effects of the changing climate.

The new president is making it clear he intends to do what he can.

I applaud his decision to bring John Kerry back onto the field of battle against climate change.

economic news

Socialism = scare tactic

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I never have thought of Harry Truman as being a squishy socialist, a guy who wanted to wrest control of our lives from private interests and hand it all over to the government.

What he says in these remarks attributed to him near the end of his presidency do resonate today as conservatives seeks to paint so many efforts to help Americans as a ploy to enact socialistic policy.

I hear it from friends of mine. One of them, an Amarillo business owner, believes that President-elect Biden is a tool of socialist interests who are intent on enacting a full government takeover of virtually every aspect of our lives. That’s how the dictionary defines socialism, by the way.

Well, I will stand by my own belief that it is not going to unfold as the president-elect’s critics suggest. They are intent on injecting fear among us.

President Truman’s wisdom is in short supply among many contemporary politicians.

Socialism = red herring | High Plains Blogger

national news

Why Trump should avoid Biden inaugural

1 Comment

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

The more thought I give to this subject, the more rational it seems for Donald Trump to stay far away from the Jan. 20 inaugural of President Biden.

It makes sense at many levels.

First, Trump has made it clear he detests losing to Biden. He has refused to concede his election loss. He might never concede.

Second, the Biden inaugural is going to be full of almost all pro-Joe Biden partisans, fans, faithful followers. Were the public address announcer to declare Donald Trump’s arrival at the inaugural podium, my sense is that he would be booed, hooted and jeered off the stage. Does the egomaniacal president really want to hear that?

Third, given all the bad blood that has flowed between Trump and the president-elect, does anyone on Earth really think the new president is going to offer any sort of a political olive branch to his immediate predecessor after he takes the oath? Hah! I damn sure don’t expect it.

Fourth, Trump has embarrassed himself, the nation and the democratic process by this futile, feckless effort to overturn the results of a free and fair election. He is rewriting his presidential legacy every single day.

Yep. It makes plenty of sense to me that Donald Trump simply should avoid any public appearances involving the changing of the presidential guard. It would produce an array of ugly and regrettable scenes.

Donald Trump’s ego seemingly wouldn’t allow it.

Just stay away, Mr. POTUS.

medical news

Why do GOP pols keep getting sick from COVID?

2 Comments

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

OK, don’t hate me because I am going to ask this question, given that I recently called for an end to the politicization of the COVID pandemic.

I gotta ask: Why are Republican politicians and political operatives — not to mention members of Donald Trump’s family — keep getting infected by the virus? Why aren’t more, um, Democratic pols and key aides to President-elect Biden getting the disease?

Oh, I think I know. It’s because GOP pols and key aides keep dismissing the measures the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention keep urging us to take to avoid getting sick; Democrats, meanwhile, are taking these measures seriously.

Could that be it? Oh, sure it is!

Is there a lesson to learn here? You bet there is.

national news

JFK’s final words ring so true

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

President Kennedy was scheduled to deliver these words 57 years ago this evening.

A gunman changed the course of history in front of the Texas School Book Depository building in downtown Dallas earlier that day.

The words that President Kennedy wanted to speak at the Trade Mart in Dallas that evening have an astonishing ring to them today, given the post-election turmoil the nation is enduring.

I encourage you to read them. Study them. Ponder their significance. Then ask yourself: Is this the best we can do so many decades later?

national news

GOP wising up to the obvious: Biden is the president-elect

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Psst. Don’t tell anyone, but I’ve got a secret I want to share.

Congressional Republicans are finally — finally! — wising up to what we’ve known since, oh, Nov. 3 … which is that Joe Biden beat Donald Trump in the race for president.

The GOP caucus is beginning to sound off, albeit a bit mutedly, that Trump needs to back off his reprehensible attempt to overturn the election results.

President-elect Biden has been proceeding as best he can toward forming a government that will take over on Jan. 20. He has gotten zero help from Trump’s team. Still, the Biden team — led by newly named chief of staff Ronald Klain — is lining up Cabinet and senior staff appointees, some of whom the POTUS-elect plans to announce on Tuesday.

Now comes word that some Republican senators and House members are telling their staffs to start working with the president-elect’s team.

Newsweek, for instance, reports: Sen. Kevin Kramer, a North Dakota Republican, said that he has instructed his staff to cooperate with any outreach from President-elect Biden’s transition team while asserting that it was “past time” for President Donald Trump to do the same.

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a longtime Trump supporter, said this morning that Trump’s refusal to help Biden’s effort to form a government is “undemocratic” and is a “national embarrassment.” Sen. Pat Toomey, a Pennsylvania Republican and another senatorial Trumpkin, has said the same thing.  Same for Utah Sen. Mitt Romney, the GOP presidential nominee in 2012.

It might be said that it’s a bit “too little and too late” for the GOP to start coming around. I won’t go there. I welcome the Republican pressure. Will it persuade Donald Trump to give up his fight to undermine our democratic process? Will it stem the embarrassment he is bringing to us from around the world? Will it cause Trump to stop endangering the safety and well-being of Americans?

Time will have to reveal all of that. For the time being, I am going to cling to a glimmer of hope that the GOP uprising will pay off.

national news

Hurry up, 2021

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I know for a hard-and-fast fact that I am far from alone in wishing this, but I’ll put it out there anyway.

The year 2020 cannot disappear fast enough!

This has been arguably the most miserable year in many people’s memory. We’ve had the pandemic. It has killed more than 250,000 Americans. It has struck friends of my wife and me. It has caused untold misery to families and to entire communities.

And yes, it has also has befallen our great nation. Our economy has collapsed. Our hospital ERs are filled beyond capacity. Our first responders are despondent as they struggle against an enemy that takes no prisoners.

The 2020 presidential election campaign unfolded ominously. Donald Trump began savaging everyone in sight. Meanwhile, he ignored the pandemic and ultimately paid the political price by losing his bid for re-election. So, there’s justice to be cherished by that result.

Still, the year has been a major-league downer. I want it to end.

Mom used to advise me against wishing my life away. Sorry, Mom, but I cannot help myself. If she were here to suffer through this year she likely would be among those of us who are wishing our life away by wanting the new year to arrive as soon as possible.

The year that’s about to pass into history has been a serious downer.

national news

The impossible is happening

1 Comment

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I didn’t think it was humanly possible, but something strange is happening in real time, right here and now.

Donald John Trump is making me even more anxious than ever for him to leave the White House, hitting the road for Mar-a-Lago, or Bedminster or wherever. Yes, I was anxious for him to leave the moment President-elect Joe Biden was declared the winner of the 2020 presidential election.

But my goodness! Trump’s behavior, his betrayal of the oath he took to defend the Constitution, his denigrating of the democratic process has forced me into a realm of anxiousness I didn’t know I possessed.

But I do. I possess it to the extent that I am wishing he simply would vacate my house far sooner than he needs to vacate it. By that I refer to Jan. 20, the date Joe Biden becomes the next president.

Just go, Mr. POTUS. Get the hell out of there! You can keep your presidential powers until the date of the new president’s swearing-in. Just don’t use them foolishly or dangerously.

I wouldn’t object one little bit to Twitter disconnecting Trump’s account. The social medium already has flagged damn near everything that Trump launches into cyberspace as being untruthful. Why not, then, just pull the plug on this clown?

Donald Trump just keeps making matters worse for him. What’s more — and this infinitely more damaging — he is making it worse for the country.

Just go away. Vanish. I want you out of my sight.

national news

Giving thanks for voters’ wisdom

1 Comment

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Allow me a brief moment to mix a bit of politics with the holiday week we’re going to celebrate.

I am giving thanks for the wisdom voters exhibited on Nov. 3 by tossing Donald John Trump out of the White House.

I remained cautiously optimistic that the outcome would turn out as it did, with Joe Biden assuming the title of president-elect. Yes, I had concern that Trump might pull a Houdini-like escape performance by repeating the stunning upset he scored in 2016 to become president.

When the votes came in and were tabulated, my concern was replaced by the satisfaction in realizing that most American voters were able to rectify the mistake that occurred four years ago.

They’re still counting ballots around the country. I look at the running totals almost daily and am heartened by the realization that more than 51 percent of Americans endorsed Joe Biden’s pledge to “restore our nation’s soul.” It needs restoration, to be sure.

I am going to place my faith in the deeds of the new president, that he will be able to bridge the chasm that divides us.

We’re going to give thanks for a lot of things this week. We shall give thanks for living in this great nation, for the liberty granted to us as Americans. We will give thanks for our families and the love that surrounds us and that we give in return.

I also am going to give thanks for the spirit of political redemption that arose on Election Day.

If this post offends you because it mixes partisan politics with the joy of a happy holiday, well … too bad. It’s what I am feeling in my heart this glorious morning.

Have a wonderful day.

Commentary on politics, current events and life experience