local news

Hoping to see re-birthed courthouse

I take at least two trips a year to Bonham, in Fannin County, to see my doctor at the Sam Rayburn VA Medical Center.

This next visit coming up soon is going to reward me — I hope sincerely — with a look at a refurbished courthouse in the middle of Bonham’s downtown square.

I’ve written about it before on this blog, as well as reported on it for KETR-FM radio, where I serve as a freelance reporter for the station’s website.

Fannin County Judge Randy Moore has been salivating — figuratively, of course — over the prospect of settling back into the courthouse. The construction fences and the barricades came down in March.

The building is occupied. To which everyone I have spoken to in county government is expressing a huge sigh of relief and accomplishment.

According to KXII-TV: “It means everything to me,” said Barbara McCutcheon, the treasurer of the Fannin County Historical Commission. “I’m gonna cry. It was such an honor to work on it.”

The county secured a grant from the Texas Historical Commission and supplemented that money with a bond issue that voters approved in 2016. The final product came in over budget, but that did not deter the effort to complete the job. The COVID-19 pandemic, though, did throw a roadblock or two in front of the county along the way.

“It stopped a lot of things in its tracks, and you say, ‘well, how did that stop it?’ Well, we couldn’t get hinges for the doors,” said Judge Moore, according to KXII.

Still, the project is done. I am looking forward very soon to seeing it up close.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Greene vs. Boebert? Wow!

What in the … ? Do you mean to suggest there might be trouble in Looney Tunes Land with two right-wing nut jobs — Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert — at each other’s throats?

Get a load of it. Greene, R-Ga., and Boebert, R-Colo., apparently aren’t quite the QAnon soul sisters many of us outsiders perceived them to be.

It appears Boebert detests being associated with Greene. The two freshman Republican congresswoman got into a heated exchange over Greene’s recent appearance before a white supremacist organization, which I guess didn’t go down well with Boebert.

Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene got into such a heated confrontation that another lawmaker had to step in to intervene: report (yahoo.com)

They both belong to the right-wing Freedom Caucus. Boebert reportedly is seen more as a “team player” than Greene, who I understand tends seek headlines on our own. Hey, she’s pretty good at that, you know?

I don’t really give a rat’s rear end about these two individuals, other than I want them defeated, never to darken Congress’s door again.

I just find it strangely satisfying to know about the fracture within the GOP loony bin caucus.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

DC riot

Public hearings to commence

Mark it down on your calendar — or perhaps log it into your smart phone: June 9 is when the House select committee investigating the 1/6 insurrection takes its hearings onto the public floor.

Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson vows a complete hearing before the whole world when he calls witnesses to testify on what they knew on that hideous day. He will make them tell the truth about when they knew it and whether the POTUS at the time, Donald Trump, is culpable in the effort to overturn our cherished democratic process with the aim of keeping Trump in power.

I don’t know about you, but I intend to watch as much of it as I can. I understand there will be roughly five days of public testimony.

I am going to look forward to hearing the Trumpkins defend the activities of their hero. Defend his inaction. His refusal to stop the attack on our law enforcement personnel guarding the Capitol Building.

Moreover, I am going to hope my stomach is strong enough to digest all the lies we are about to hear.

Ladies and gentlemen, pass the popcorn, because we are about to watch a political drama play out.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

medical news

Investigate? For what?

Ronny “The Twitter King” Jackson keeps yammering about launching an investigation into Dr. Anthony Fauci when Republicans take control of Congress after this year’s midterm election.

Jackson, the rookie congressman from Texas’s 13th District, doesn’t specify what the charges against Fauci would entail. Hmm. Why do you suppose that’s the case?

I figure it’s because the moron doesn’t have a clue. He’s just angry because Fauci keeps telling us it is wise to mask up, to keep our distance from strangers and to take other precautionary measures against getting sick from the COVID-19 virus.

As for Jackson, the nimrod who’s got his share of troubles staring him in his puss, he ought to show a bit more respect for one of world’s premier infectious disease doctors. Indeed, he ought to lay low on Twitter for a while as the House Ethics Committee determines if he broke the damn law by using campaign funds for personal expenses, which has been alleged against this clown.

Jackson, let’s recall once was nominated to become veterans affairs secretary by Donald J. Trump. He pulled his name back after allegations surfaced about his conduct, relating to accusations of harassment, drinking on the job and dispensing drugs a bit too cavalierly.

So, he moved to the Texas Panhandle, ran for Congress and then got elected. Good grief!

He’s been nothing but an insufferable pain in the ass ever since, firing off Twitter messages incessantly castigating the commander in chief and, of course, Dr. Fauci.

I am waiting with bated breath to see what in the name of demagoguery the former doctor — Jackson — plans to investigate about the job Dr. Fauci has done while helping us navigate our way out of this pandemic.

I just wish the Twitter King Jackson would just shut the hell up.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

How bad will it get?

Karl Rove, the man once known derisively as “George W. Bush’s brain,” has laid out what he believes will occur when they count the midterm election ballots in November.

He writes in the Wall Street Journal, “Even Democratic strategists now admit the midterms will be disastrous for their party. “It’s going to be a terrible cycle for Democrats,” Doug Sosnik, one of the party’s best grand strategists, recently told the New York Times. The question is how big the calamity will be. A freeway pileup? Category 5 hurricane? Or Krakatoa with all the attendant consequences?

I do not intend to question the sincerity of Sosnik’s assertion, as reported by Rove, but it kind of begs a question that’s been rattling around my brain for the past few weeks.

It goes like this: Might it be even remotely possible that Democratic strategists are laying out a worst-case scenario with a glimmer of hope that if their losses are less than expected that they can claim a sort of moral victory?

Or, there’s this: Is it possible that the gloom-doom-despair prognosis is hiding some positive outcome, that Democrats actually could retain control of one of the congressional chambers?

I realize that politics can be a cynical game. Politicians and their hired guns — be they Democrat or Republican — look for any angle they can find to suit their agenda.

Since I am perched in the cheap seats out here in Flyover Country, I am nowhere close to the heartbeat of the nation’s political center. I am just wondering whether there could be a bit of gamesmanship being played.

These things do happen. I am just sayin’, man.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news, local news, State news

Lucio deserves new trial

I cannot overstate the significance of the support that a woman condemned to die in Texas prison execution chamber is receiving from both sides of the great political divide in this state.

Melissa Lucio has received a stay of execution from the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. She was slated to die on Thursday for the death of her 2-year-old daughter 15 years ago.

I believe she deserves a new trial, given all the doubt about her conviction and the allegation that the state withheld evidence from her defense team.

What continues to amaze me is the support she is getting from tough-on-crime conservatives in the Legislature, led by Plano Republican state Rep. Jeff Leach, who had the honor of telling Lucio this week about the CCA decision to forestall her execution. Lucio’s reaction was to sob uncontrollably.

Leach is a former member of the ultra-conservative Texas Freedom Caucus; he resigned from the caucus a while ago, citing some issues with the hardline positions it was taking. He still is a conservative, but he appears to be a man with an actual heart.

I applaud the leadership he is taking in fighting for Melissa Lucio.

I happen to oppose capital punishment, but you likely know that already. I also oppose the partisan divide that too often splits politicians along party lines even when the issue compels them to seek common ground.

One of those issues is seeking justice for a prison inmate who might have been convicted wrongly.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Tough to comprehend

I am likely to go to my grave never understanding how a politician can be heard threatening his colleagues over their conduct in the wake of a violent political insurrection can receive — allegedly — a standing ovation when he rises to speak to them in person.

So it was, reportedly, when U.S. House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy spoke to his GOP colleagues today. It all comes after media reports — complete with audio recordings of McCarthy — of the pol’s indignation over the 1/6 riot that sought to subvert our democracy.

I mean, you can hear McCarthy talk angrily of his colleagues’ behavior during and immediately after the riot. Then he said something profoundly stupid to them.

He wasn’t talking “publicly” about them, only “privately,” and added that he wouldn’t ever say those things in public.

Why, the House Republican caucus members just stood and cheered their hero, who wants to be the next speaker of the House if his party takes control of Congress after the midterm election later this year.

Go fu**ing figure.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

‘Insurrection’ growing many legs

The past may be taking the shape of a prologue to an unfolding saga that is far from reaching its conclusion.

Watergate began in June 1972 when some goons were caught breaking into the Democratic National Headquarters in D.C. One thing led to another, and another, and another.

We learned about a coverup and the enormous abuse of power that came from the Oval Office.

It ended with the resignation of President Nixon more than two years later.

Fast-forward to 2020. Donald Trump lost an election. He refused to concede to Joe Biden, who beat him. He stood before a crowd on the Ellipse and told them to “march on the Capitol.” They did and all hell broke loose.

They launched an attack on our democratic form of government, as Congress was meeting on that day to certify the results of the election.

Now we hear about text messages, emails, pleas from family members for Trump to intervene; he didn’t do a thing to stop the riot. We also hear that members of Congress, Trump’s fellow Republicans, were warned against committing violence. The House GOP leader said he would tell Trump to resign; he then denied saying such a thing, only to be shown as a liar.

The 1/6 insurrection is growing more legs, just as the burglary 50 years ago grew them. Indeed, the past may well be prologue.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

We are sinking ever lower

Have we really devolved into a society that applauds a candidate who says a medical official hired to guide the nation out of a killer pandemic should be stood in front of a firing squad and executed?

Never mind. I know the answer. It is yes. It sickens me to my core.

John Benett is chair of the Oklahoma Republican Party. He told a cheering crowd that Dr. Anthony Fauci should be shot by a firing squad. The worst part? The crowd cheered and clapped at the congressional candidate’s hideous message!

The Huffington Post reported:

“We’re fighting communist Democrats, establishment RINOs!” Bennett ranted in a video that Right Wing Watch shared online Tuesday and has now gone viral.

“We’re fighting against a system that stole the election in 2020 and nobody had been held accountable,” he continued, parroting former President Donald Trump’s baseless election fraud claims. “We’re in a war with bureaucrats that have forced vaccine mandates on us, mask mandates on us.”

Oh my goodness.

“In a war”? Is this clown serious? Yeah. He is.

Republicans Cheer As Congressional Candidate Demands Fauci’s Execution By Firing Squad (msn.com)

There is not a single thing I can say that is going to sink into the thick skulls of those who buy into that bullsh**.  I am left only to condemn in the strongest terms possible the kind of hateful demagoguery that has become the norm within what used to be known as a great political party.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news

Population sign already obsolete

Whenever they get around to posting these signs at the Princeton city limits, the city and the Texas Department of Transportation will have to consider replacing them with fresh signs … and numbers.

The 2020 Census puts Princeton’s population at 17,027 residents; the 2010 Census had our once-sleepy little town at 6,807 individuals. The increase has nearly tripled between those two Census periods. 

However, the 17,027 figure already is old news. I can tell you that without a doubt there are many more people living in Princeton at this moment than there were when they stopped counting for the most recent Census.

If I were in charge of keeping track of that number, I would go dizzy trying to catch up with the rapid growth that is occurring along our stretch of U.S. 380 in Collin County, Texas.

I’m just sayin’, man.

For sure, our city is far from alone in this exercise in frustration. McKinney is exploding, as is Plano, Wylie, Farmersville, Frisco, Allen, Anna, Prosper, Melissa and many other North Texas communities. 

When you see the 17,027-resident figure whenever they post the next signs at the edges of our city, just know that the number doesn’t mean a thing. The real number of residents no doubt is far greater.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

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