national news

Prediction record remains in the tank

Well … it looks as though my miserable record of political prognostication remains in the dumper, given what’s being reported about what Donald J. Trump appears likely to do — maybe soon.

Major media organizations are reporting that Trump has made his decision. That he will seek the presidency again in 2024. Oh, my … be still my outright rage!

The twice-impeached crook who held the office for a term between 2017 and 2021 reportedly wants the office back in his grimy grip.

Against my better judgment and my horrible record, I went out on the ol’ limb and said Trump wouldn’t run in 2024.

But you know what? I am not going to wave the surrender flag just yet. All we know at this moment is that Trump is planning to make “an announcement.” Hmm. What will that “announcement” reveal? Any thoughts?

I just cannot get past the notion that Trump actually knows deep in what passes for a heart that he actually lost the 2020 election. Or that he understands that he is grievously damaged political goods, no matter the blathering of the shrinking mob of zealots who continue to stand by their cult leader.

Oh, and then we have what looks as though is a seriously legitimate possibility that the Department of Justice is going to indict the former Insurrectionist in Chief of serious crimes against the government. How does, oh, “conspiracy to commit sedition” strike you?

Thus, I find it strange in the extreme to believe that a former president who well could face a many-decades-long prison term actually will seek to sell himself to voters.

Then again … this is The Donald.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news

Time for heads to roll

I’ve seen and heard enough, even from some distance, about the failure of the Uvalde, Texas, school district chief of police to protect the children and teachers in that grief-stricken district.

Pete Arredondo needs to find another line of work far away from law enforcement. Thus, it is up to the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District Board of Trustees to fire him. Send him packing. He didn’t do his job.

Whenever I see the term “administrative leave,” I tend to cringe. All that means is that whoever is being “punished” for failure to do his or her job is still getting paid even though he or she is not performing the duties of the job. That describes Arredondo’s status at the moment.

A gunman walked into Robb Elementary School and slaughtered 19 children and two educators. About the only thing of consequence that Arredondo has said is that he didn’t know he was in charge of the police response to the massacre.

Really? If not you, then who should have been in charge. This happened on property you took an oath to protect. The chief didn’t do his job.

The dilly-dallying by the school board has gone on long enough. The whole grieving world now has seen the video of the cops standing around, trying to figure out what to do while the lunatic was killing children in the classroom.

This tragedy is on Pete Arredondo’s hands. He failed to do his job. Arredondo needs to go.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

media news

Staying away from initialized responses

I want to say a few words about a trend that became prevalent with the advent of social media and about how — as a general rule — I choose to communicate like a semi-normal human being rather than relying on this social media trend.

The trend is the use of initialized phrases. You know what I mean: LOL, SMH, LMAO, BTW, ICYMI … whatever. I can’t remember ’em all.

What’s more, I am not at all nuts about other abbreviated word forms that appear on my Twitter text messages: plz and ur come to mind immediately.

I prefer to write in complete sentences, using actual words with real definitions that one can find in a standard desk dictionary.

Why mention this at all? I guess it’s because I fear we are bastardizing our language, turning this complex language called English into something not entirely recognizable.

It was bad enough that my journalism career contributed to the destruction of my penmanship skills. My fellow journalists out there know of which I speak. I was forced over many years to write as rapidly as I could to be sure I can publish the quotes accurately from the individuals who were doing the speaking.

The result was a gradual decline in penmanship … for which I received good grades when I was in elementary school. I once was proud of my handwriting. No more, man.

Social media have taken that destruction to another level.

I am somewhat active on social media. I use email, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn mostly. I just want to resist the urge to type those silly initialized references to phrases I normally would write or speak, although I do understand the reason for their existence in the first place: Twitter allows only a few characters to generate a message, so these are space-savers.

Oh, this modern method of communicating. It drives me nuts.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news

Teachers with guns? No!

The video of the police freezing in place while a gunman slaughtered fourth-graders and two teachers in a Uvalde, Texas, elementary school classroom has me thinking about one thing.

It’s the notion proposed by Republican politicians that we need to arm teachers, allow them to carry handguns into the classroom so they can take out shooters who did what the lunatic did in Uvalde.

My mind and my memory also are drawn to a comment that a North Texas educator told me just recently. He said teachers’ sign on to educate children. They do not become educators to pack firearms into school.

This educator told me in no way would he allow teachers to carry guns to work. What he didn’t say is what he would do if the local school board voted to authorize the arming of teachers. I think I know what he would do. He would resign.

Republican pols are wrong to suggest that teachers with guns is the correct response to this kind of carnage we have witnessed in Uvalde, or Newtown, Conn., or Littleton, Colo.

Meanwhile, our rage mounts as the video of the cops’ non-response to the Uvalde shooter burns ever more deeply into our soul.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Lesson in ethics

I watched an interesting bit of ethical correctness play out this week at a city council meeting I was covering for a newspaper for which I work on a freelance basis.

The Farmersville City Council made several appointments Tuesday night to citizen boards and commissions. One of the appointees was Sue Williams, who happens to be married to Terry Williams — who happens to serve on the City Council.

What did Terry Williams do prior to the vote? He motioned to the city attorney and asked to recuse himself from the vote. Terry Williams walked out of the council chambers and the council then voted to put Sue Williams on the board to which she had been nominated.

Why mention this? Ohhhh, because a member of the U.S. Supreme Court doesn’t have the semblance of ethical propriety to recuse himself from court matters involving his wife.

Justice Clarence Thomas has voted on matters related to The Big Lie promoted by Donald J. Trump, the defeated and disgraced former president who — to this very moment — hasn’t yet conceded that he lost the 2020 election to President Biden.

The most recent ethical transgression occurred a few weeks ago when the Supreme Court voted 8-1 to require Trump to turn over White House records to the House select committee examining the 1/6 insurrection. Who voted “no”? Justice Thomas.

Why did he vote no? It might have something to with the fact that his wife, Ginni, is an ardent MAGA follower of Trump and a believer in The Big Lie who attended the 1/6 rally but left before it turned into a violent frontal assault on the U.S. government.

Clarence Thomas clearly should take a page from the ethical book followed by a small-town city council member in North Texas.

Whereas Terry Williams saw the potential for conflict of interest were he to vote to accept his wife for a spot on a citizens panel, Clarence Thomas continues to ignore that gigantic blind spot.

Indeed, the justice would solve the problem altogether by resigning from the nation’s highest court — which he clearly should do.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news

Uvalde video: outrageous!

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott once proclaimed he was “livid” over what he said was a misleading report from police in their response to the Uvalde school massacre.

Well … I have to ask whether the governor is even more livid having no doubt seen the video of police officers scrambling like a group of Keystone Kops as the shooter opened fire in the Robb Elementary School classroom.

I mean, Abbott sat before us and praised the heroism and professionalism of the cops who responded to the slaughter of 19 fourth-graders and two of their teachers.

The video we have seen now tells us a radically — and tragically — different story. Stated briefly, the cops didn’t know what the hell they were doing!

They supposedly were trained to respond to “active shooter” incidents. Yet they did not seem to know how to take down the gunman. Some of them were protected by shields but they still didn’t storm the classroom.

The loved ones of the victims? Oh, they are royally enraged. As they should be!

They still demand answers. The cops aren’t giving them. They want the truth. They want closure. They demand to know who to hold accountable.

They need to know the whole truth behind this horrific tragedy.

Gov. Abbott needs to summon his reported anger at the cops and join the chorus of those demanding to know the truth.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Damned if he does … or doesn’t

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Merrick Garland is facing a serious case of twin damnation as he ponders whether to seek a criminal indictment against Donald J. Trump in the matter pertaining to that insurrection that the former POTUS incited.

The attorney general is going to balance his commitment to the law with the obvious pressure he will feel from both ends of the great divide.

The House of Representatives select committee that is looking at the insurrection, its aftermath, its cause and its result is going to decide whether to refer criminal charges to the Justice Department.

What does the AG do?

He will face certain recrimination no matter what he decides.

If AG Garland decides to prosecute Trump on, say, conspiracy to commit sedition, he will face the wrath of the far right and the Trump cultists. They’ll wave the “witch hunt” banner and proclaim that the “far left Democrat Party” is out to get their guy.

If, however, he decides against charging Trump with a crime, he will face the wrath of others who believe the president should not be allowed to walk away … again! I mean, he did skate through two impeachment trials and it well might be that a third successful avoidance of accountability could be too much for some of us to handle.

Then again, the attorney general could indict Trump on a host of lesser charges, which I am sure would bring its share of teeth-gnashing as well.

This is sort of my way of saying that I would not want to be in Merrick Garland’s place at this moment in history.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Pure nonsense!

1 Comment

All righty, this seems to make a point better than I could ever make it about whether Herschel Walker, the Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate from Georgia, is a certifiable dumbass.

I want to challenge anyone out there to parse this piece of verbal dooky and report back to me.

What in the hell is this idiot saying?

Let’s remember that this former football star who has earned the “full and complete endorsement” of Donald J. Trump wants to join a legislative chamber that once proclaimed itself to be the world’s “greatest deliberative body.”

This guy deserves to enter the Senate chamber? Not … a … chance!

I might be inclined to pay real American money to watch this guy debate the man he wants to defeat, Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock.

Meantime, someone please tell me what Walker said.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news

AG faces mind-numbing concerns

This is why U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland is getting the big bucks, man.

These hearings before the House 1/6 select committee examining the insurrection are producing a mountain of evidence against Donald Trump. What is an attorney general to do about this?

Sigh …

There appears to be a school of thought developing that any decision by Garland to forgo a criminal prosecution of Trump carries at least as much grief for the AG as a prosecution. Indeed, the cost of doing nothing might be greater than the blow back that will come if Garland takes this case to a grand jury, which then could indict Trump.

On what? Seditious conspiracy is possible. Dereliction of duty is another. Interfering with election officials’ conduct, too.

I thought the sedition accusation might be the most difficult to prove. I am not sure about that today. I mean — wow! — the dude and his key staff knew all hell was likely to break loose on 1/6. They did nothing!

Merrick Garland is a man of impeccable character. I am likely to accept whatever he decides, even though a no-go on prosecuting Trump is going to make me grit my teeth real hard.

He said he will follow the law all the way to the top. I will take him at his word. It’s looking more and more to me as though we are going to watch all hell breaking loose once again once the AG examines that mountain of evidence in front of him.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

The hits keep coming

How much more drama can the nation take as the House select 1/6 committee marches on in its quest for the truth behind the insurrection and frontal assault on our nation’s government?

We got a snootful of drama yet again today when two former Proud Boys and Oath Keepers members talked of their former devotion to Donald J. Trump and what they did at the former POTUS’s behest on that terrible day.

Oh, and then we heard from Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., who told us that Trump sought to tamper with one of the witnesses who testified before the committee. The witness didn’t accept a phone call from the twice-impeached president and instead made contract with legal counsel. I sense we are going to hear a lot more from and about this individual.

Today was the seventh televised hearing. More of them are coming.

This is strange, man. I am absolutely transfixed by this testimony. It is dramatic in the extreme. Once again, it tells me that we have evidence of crimes committed at the very top of the political chain of command.

I am quite certain U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland and his team of legal eagles are taking copious notes.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

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