crime news

Uvalde shooting panel: a pox on all houses

Three Texans — a former state Supreme Court justice and two members of the Texas House of Representatives — have delivered a scathing report on what went wrong when a shooter killed 19 children and two teachers in a Uvalde elementary school.

Their verdict: We have witnessed a systemic failure at all levels.

The cops who responded to the violence didn’t know what they were doing, they didn’t know who was in charge and they failed at every level to protect the community from the madness that erupted at Robb Elementary School.

Now comes the seemingly impossible task of determining how we fix it. It’s not impossible, but, yes, it is daunting in the extreme.

I will stand by my earlier stated belief that Uvalde school district police chief Pete Arredondo needs to be fired and he needs to be sent on down the road to do something other than put on a badge and strap on a firearm as a police officer.

I also will contend as the top cop in the Uvalde school district it naturally should have fallen on him to take charge of the situation.

The Texas Tribune reports: But blame for the flawed police response extends far beyond the school district police chief of a six-officer department, the report concludes.

The report criticized other officers and law enforcement agencies, many of them better trained, for failing to fill the leadership vacuum left by Arredondo’s inaction.

Law enforcement failures in Uvalde shooting went far beyond local police | The Texas Tribune

The 77-page report offers details on the number of police officers on the scene. Arredondo’s police force comprised a tiny fraction of the total tactical team.

State Reps. Dustin Burrows, R-Lubbock, Joe Moody, D-El Paso, and former Justice Eva Guzman have done a thorough job of laying bare how the command and control of the situation failed as the tragedy was unfolding.

Eva Guzman offered a cogent piece of advice to those who run every school system in Texas: read the report.

Moreover, these folks need to assess their own response strategies and whether they are able to do what the individuals who responded to the Uvalde slaughter failed to do.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news

City faces stern test

Amarillo City Hall is going to court against an individual who is angry enough at the city to file a lawsuit that says what the city did to incur a mountain of debt is illegal.

I won’t contest the legality of it, but from my perspective from the Metroplex it looks as though it might have been seriously ill-advised.

Amarillo businessman Alex Fairly has sued the city over the council’s decision to levy $260 million in debt through what it calls “anticipation notes.” To be candid, I never had heard of that type of municipal funding until I heard about that decision.

The reason I am questioning the wisdom of this move is its timing. The city put a $275 million bond issue up for a vote in November 2020. The voters offered a resounding “no” vote on whether to renovate the civic center and relocate City Hall. So, what did the council do?

It said, in effect, that it didn’t matter what votes said, that it would proceed anyway. Anticipation notes don’t need voter approval.

Boom! Just like that the city started turning the wheels on a project that voters had just rejected.

Can you say “pitiful timing”?

A visiting judge from Lubbock County decided recently to combine two lawsuits into one, which I presume means the matter will be settled with a single judgment.

If Fairly wins and the court determines the city acted illegally by not providing sufficient public notice in advance of its decision, then the city will have a serious legal matter to clear.

If the city wins and then proceeds with the plan to act over its constituents’ objections, then the city faces a larger political obstacle. I hope to keep watching this matter play out.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

legal news

Cruz is the one who’s wrong!

Rafael Edward Cruz says the Supreme Court decided wrongly when it legalized same-sex marriage in this country.

Well, the junior Texas Republican U.S. senator — to my total non-surprise — is about as wrong as he can get on that one. The Cruz Missile, indeed, has misfired once more.

The court ruled in 2015 in the noted Obergefell v. Hodges case that same-sex marriage is as legal as heterosexual marriage. It was seen as a monumental victory for the “equality movement” that said gay couples shouldn’t be discriminated against on the basis of whom they love.

I believe the court ruled correctly. My benchmark lies in the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution; the final clause of Section 1 declares: “nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

Yes, no one should be denied “equal protection of the laws.” What part of that clause does Sen. Cruz reject?

Sen. Ted Cruz said the Supreme Court wrongly decided Obergefell, the ruling that legalized same-sex marriage (msn.com)

Ted Cruz and other archconservatives are feeling mighty smug these days in the wake of the court’s 5-4 ruling to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 50-year-old landmark ruling that had legalized abortion. Cruz and other right-wingers now are drawing a bead on gay marriage.

Cruz is about as wrong as anyone can get, at least from my perspective, in condemning the court’s ruling on the Obergefell case. The way I read the 14th Amendment tells me — without equivocation — that no American should be denied the right to marry whomever they wish.

That is precisely what “equal protection under the laws” provides all Americans … no matter what.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news, media news

Blogging keeps me relevant

Blogging has produced many joys in my post-full-time-newspaper world.

One of them is that it allows me to keep doing what I did with modest success for nearly 37 years: offering opinions on issues of the day.

A corollary to that joy is the notion that it also allows me to cling just a bit to a career that gave me great satisfaction and it perhaps will allow young people coming of age in this era a chance to understand and perhaps even appreciate the craft I pursued.

Whether these young people will be reading blogs or writing them remains to be seen, of course. I hope they do both. I want to remain relevant, even in some small way, to how they search for news and information and, yes, even opinion on issues of importance.

To be crystal clear, I am not yet out of the newswriting game. My full-time career ended just a month short of a decade ago; wow, it seems like just yesterday when my boss told me my services would no longer be sought at what once was the leading newspaper in the Texas Panhandle and one of the leading media outlets in West Texas.

I walked away from that post on the spot and haven’t looked back — too often in the years since.

I took up blogging along with a few part-time, temporary gigs along the way. I have managed to stay fresh and alert writing blogs for Panhandle PBS, for KFDA NewsChannel 10 in Amarillo and now for KETR-FM radio at Texas A&M-Commerce and for the Farmersville Times near where my wife and I landed in late 2018.

I even had a month-long stint as an editorial writer for the Dallas Morning News! That gig ended at the end of 2021, but at least I can say I wrote for a major metropolitan daily newspaper … if only for a flash in time!

The one constant in all of that has been High Plains Blogger. I decided to keep the name even though I no longer reside on the High Plains of Texas. Hey, it developed a brand … you know? Why mess with it?

So, with that I will keep on blogging. My work might not always remind others of the once-glorious craft I pursued, it surely keeps me energized enough to keep going for as long as I am able.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

War on democracy!

House select 1/6 committee chairman Bennie Thompson said it eloquently this week as he opened the latest televised hearing into the insurrection incited by the immediate past president of the United States.

He said Donald Trump sought to declare war against our democratic process, the one he took an oath to protect and defend. Instead, when the results of an election didn’t go as he intended, he summoned the crowd and told ’em to take back their government from those who “stole” it from them.

The televised hearings have informed us of something critical. It is that Trump’s closest advisers, including members of his family, told him he lost the 2020 election to Joseph Biden. Trump knew the evidence wasn’t there. The attorney general said so, as did the FBI director, and so did practically every individual — with a few notable, infamous exceptions, of course — within earshot of the president.

Did he heed what they said? No, he went to war with the very democratic process that has been operating since the founding of the republic.

How in this blessed world does anyone accept a thoroughly discredited notion that the election was “rigged” to secure a victory for Joe Biden?

Indeed, the only thievery being attempted has been done by the guy who lost the election! That, too, has been made abundantly clear during the testimony we all have heard.

A man who swore to almighty God to protect the government from enemies “foreign and domestic” only to declare war on that very institution must not be allowed anywhere near the halls of power … ever again!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Cheney might lose … damn!

Never in a zillion years would I have imagined myself saying what I am about to say … which is that I fear that U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney is going to lose her fight to stay in Congress. 

I have seen some recent polling data that suggest that Cheney is going to lose by 20 percentage points to a challenger who’s been endorsed by Donald John Trump, the twice-impeached former POTUS who has declared Cheney — a fellow Republican — to be Public Enemy No. 1.

And why? Well, Cheney has determined that Trump is a lawless buffoon, a danger to democracy and an existential threat to the security of this nation. Why does she say that?

Because of the 1/6 insurrection that Trump incited.

Cheney is serving on the House select committee examining the insurrection and has been a stalwart, stellar champion for the rule of law. She has declared that one cannot be “loyal to Trump and be loyal to the Constitution.” She has chosen to honor her congressional oath, which pledges loyalty to the governing document.

For that she is likely to be punished by losing her GOP primary battle next month.

A lot of center-left, Democrat-leaning American patriots — such as yours truly — are sickened by the notion of Cheney losing to a Trumpkin.

Let me be clear once again. Liz Cheney is far too conservative a politician for my taste. However, she has earned my undying respect and admiration for standing up for the rule of law.

I will admit that her ferocious defense of the rule of law against Donald Trump’s cavalier notion that he stands above the law has all but wiped the slate clean as far as her previous record is concerned.

It’s not a lead-pipe cinch that she will lose the primary in Wyoming. However, it appears to be looking that way. And for that, the Republican primary voters in Wyoming should cower in shame.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

environmental news

Yeah, it’s hot … but wait

I keep sweating through my shirts, soaking them and me to an annoying level. It’s been hotter ‘n hell out there for most of July and is likely to stay that way in North Texas through the next month, too.

Let us, though, put a thing or two in perspective.

Does the current heat wave prove without a doubt that Earth’s climate is changing? Nope. It doesn’t prove a thing, only that it’s damn hot.

I am reminded of when a U.S. senator traipsed onto the floor of that chamber with a snowball in hand. Republican Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, a noted climate change denier, sought to use the snowball as absolute proof that climate change — aka global warming — is the hoax he has said it is.

Inhofe was wrong. Indeed, he insulted the intelligence of many others of us who do believe that Earth’s climate is changing, that the planet’s temperature is rising.

So,, juxtaposed with that example, I want to caution those who would equate the current blistering heat as proof of the thing that Inhofe said is a hoax are mistaken if they equate the current heat wave with climate change.

A Dallas-Fort Worth network affiliate station, WFAA-TV, has been running a public service announcement that seeks to explain the difference between “climate” and “weather.” WFAA meteorologist Greg Fields makes the point that “weather” measures conditions in the moment, while “climate” conditions should be measured over lengthy periods of time.

That’s a boiled-down explanation of what many of us have known all along. Still, I happen to believe that our climate is changing. I also believe humankind has played a huge role in that bringing about that change. And … I believe we need to get busy to mitigate the damage that we keep doing to it.

Let us complain all we want about the hot weather. Heck, I’m doing plenty of it myself. However, let us take care that we don’t conflate today’s 100-degree blast with the changing of Earth’s climate.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Political frenzy is upon us

We have entered into a type of season with which I will need to familiarize myself. I want to call the Season of Political Frenzy.

It seems like only yesterday that the 2020 presidential campaign ended. Joe Biden won the presidency over Donald J. Trump. Except that Trump didn’t concede, didn’t acknowledge publicly that Biden is the new president, didn’t offer any support for a “peaceful transition.”

It’s now two years later. The midterm election is upon us. Republicans have stars in their eyes about taking over control of the Senate and the House. The campaign is ramping up rapidly.

The midterm campaign isn’t even over and already the speculation is beginning to overtake many of us over whether President Biden will bow out, whether Donald Trump will make yet another run for the highest office in the land, who among Democrats might want to succeed Biden and who among Republicans might want to become the “anti-Trump” within the GOP.

I enjoy politics. I take a great interest in following the ebb and flow of the political tide. I have my favorite candidates and my preferred stance on the issues of the day.

The frenetic nature of the coverage, though, seems to be worsening with each election cycle.

Truth is, I want a return to boring politics.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news

We need answers!

No one, it is quite safe to say, wants to be embarrassed before people who expect more from you.

So it was when Texas Gov. Greg Abbott sang the praises of law enforcement in the immediate aftermath of the Uvalde school slaughter, only to learn the next day that he had been “misled” by the cops who had given him the wrong information about what happened when the shooter began killing those precious 19 children and their teachers.

Governor Greg Abbott comments on the leaked surveillance video from inside Robb Elementary School (msn.com)

Now he’s even angrier. The public now has seen the video of the stumble-bum response of police as the shooter was killing his victims. They didn’t know what to do, despite their extensive “active shooter” training.

“Obviously, it’s disgusting to see what happened,” said Gov. Abbott this week. “It’s been clear from the time of Columbine that whenever there is a shooting, like what was happening in this school, you run towards that danger and encounter that danger and you have to eliminate the shooter as quickly as possible. From what I have seen, from the video, it looks like that policy was not followed.”

To be fair, two officers did run toward the gunfire, but retreated when the gunman opened fire on them.

What happened over the next 77 minutes, though, makes our blood boil. The cops armed with shields and an array of weaponry failed to take the shooter out when they had multiple chances.

We have a truckload of issues to peel away. Time, though, is not on the side of anyone who must provide answers to parents, spouses and siblings of those who died in that horrific massacre.

They want answers to what happened and why it went so terribly wrong. They want them now.

They deserve to get what they are demanding.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Biden update: Stay the course, Mr. POTUS

Joe Biden is feeling lots of heat these days from the far left as well as from the far right. The right-wingers’ criticism is to be expected. The lefties, though, present a unique concern for the president of the United States.

I am insisting, thus, that President Biden continue on a path toward finding common ground with both ends of the spectrum. It is how he has been wired since he hopped onto the national stage after winning the 1972 election to the U.S. Senate.

Biden has been on — or near that stage — for the past 50 years.

Am I concerned about falling approval ratings? Sure. Who wouldn’t be? The RealClearPolitics poll average puts the president’s approval rating at around 39%. Don’t remind me how bad that looks compared to what other presidents have experienced. I get it … totally!

Even though I won’t blame the president for all the issues that are dragging his poll numbers down, I certainly understand the need for the head of state and government and our commander in chief to get more aggressive in his use of the bully pulpit.

I remain a good-government progressive, which is how I describe a politician willing to compromise to achieve legislative success. Joe Biden has shown an ability to do such a thing over his many years in public service.

Yes, he is going to face pressure from the progressive wing of his own party and from the obstructionist wing of the Republican Party.

Stay the course, Mr. President.

johnkanelis_9@hotmail.com

Commentary on politics, current events and life experience