national news

Our guns are safe!

Eric Swallwell makes his point with crystal clarity. He writes in an op-ed that appeared on Newsweek.com:

For decades, one of the most tried and true scare tactics by the gun lobby is that the government—specifically Democrats—are coming for your guns. These misinformation campaigns have been used for years to scare law-abiding Americans into thinking they are going to be put under government surveillance to confiscate their guns.

I must stipulate a couple of points. One is that Swallwell is a Democratic congressman and a former prosecuting attorney from California who, in 2021, presided over the second impeachment of Donald J. Trump. He is a fierce partisan.

The second point is that I am one of those “law-abiding Americans” who owns a couple of firearms. I’ve had ’em for many decades. One of the long guns is a .22-caliber rifle my father gave me when I was about 12. The second one is a 30.06-caliber scoped rifle that had been re-bored from its original life as a .303-caliber Enfield; Dad gave that one to me many years ago.

The .22 is a single-shot bolt-action weapon. The 30.06 carries a magazine of five rounds, with a sixth bullet in the chamber. They’re both hidden deeply in our North Texas home.

Why spell out those details? Because as a law-abiding American citizen who — by the way — is angered and appalled at the gun violence that plagues this nation, I have no difficulty with efforts to control the flow of firearms onto our streets.

President Biden Does Not Want to Take Your Guns Away | Opinion (newsweek.com)

I also am acutely aware of what the Constitution’s Second Amendment says about firearms.

It just galls me to the max when I hear demagogues try to place nefarious motives in the hearts of minds of others with regard to guns and their place in modern American society.

The gun lobby seeks to frighten Americans. The lobbyists appear to be winning the argument. Too many Americans are afraid of an enemy that does not exist with regard our guns.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Donald Trump

Remember that this guy still got elected

Alexander Burns and Jonathan Martin have written a book that lays bare even more of the reprehensible examples of how Donald Trump conducted himself as president of the United States.

It is titled “This Will Not Pass.” We have learned a lot of its contents already. How Trump sought help to overturn the 2020 election and how he demanded that governors flatter him and “ask nicely” for federal aid to help them cope with natural disasters.

The book by two seasoned New York Times reporters is just the latest in a string of tell-all tales about life working in the Trump administration. It ain’t pretty, man.

Let us remember something, though, as we ponder whether any of this might forestall a Trump for the presidency a third time in 2024. It is that this disgusting excuse for a human being managed to get elected POTUS in 2016 after:

  • Disparaging a war hero and declaring that he preferred warriors who “aren’t captured.”
  • Mocking a New York Times reporter’s disability.
  • Admitting in an interview that he grabbed women by their genitalia.
  • Admitting to committing adultery on his first two wives and then paying a woman hush money to keep quiet on a tryst he had while married to his third wife — who had just given birth to the couple’s son.
  • Mocking a Muslim Gold Star couple who had the temerity to criticize him during the 2016 Democratic National Convention.

Just so we’re clear. I am not at all convinced that The Donald is even going to run for POTUS in ’24. I see evidence that his support among actual Republicans is eroding. He is making bizarro endorsements of candidates, picking individuals on the basis of their fan appeal and not on any policy pronouncements.

I just want to caution everyone — and I have to remind myself of this, too — against throwing dirt on the former A**hole in Chief’s face.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Hatch’s death saddens me

A strange sense of sadness overtook me this evening as I learned of the death of the longest-serving Republican U.S. senator, Orrin Hatch of Utah.

Why am I so sad? I think it is because Hatch, who left the Senate in 2018, embodied a gentler time in American politics. Did I agree with his policy views? Hah! Not even close! Hardly ever!

However, this conservative lawmaker — whose name appears on hundreds of pieces of legislation that became law — exemplified the ability to work with Democrats. He knew how to find common ground, where to look for it and how to craft it into meaningful legislation.

He said this in his farewell address to the Senate: “The last several years I have seen the abandonment of regular order … Gridlock is the new norm. And like the humidity here, partisanship permeates everything we do, … All the evidence points to an unsettling truth: The Senate, as an institution, is in crisis, or at least may be in crisis.”

Yep, it’s in crisis, all right. It is in crisis because the Senate has turned into a pit of vipers, along with the House, with members of both chambers expressing outright fear of working with members of the other party.

That is nothing close to the “regular order” that Hatch and other senators cherished.

He was a principled conservative, but he was a gentleman, too.

Thus, the sadness at his death.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news, Sports news

Tell the whole story, Sen. Cotton

There you go. This well might be the most compelling rebuke of Republican opposition to the teaching an element of our national history that I have seen so far.

It comes to me from a good friend who share it on social media. The “Tom Cotton” referenced in the top passage is the GOP senator from Arkansas. Cotton has been opposing what he and other congressional Rs refer to as “critical race theory.”

Of course, Sen. Cotton is quite correct to salute the accomplishments of Jackie Robinson, the first African American to play Major League Baseball. He smashed through that barrier 75 years ago this season. “Today we honor him and his lasting legacy,” Cotton wrote via Twitter.

Yes! We do!

But hold on! What about the 50 years of MLB’s existence prior to Robinson joining the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947? Dare we also discuss in our public school classrooms the reasons why Robinson and other African Americans were denied the opportunity to play big league ball with white players? Do we ignore the inherent racism in MLB’s policy banning black players? Do we also ignore the epithets that fans hurled at him as he sought to play baseball in big league ballparks?

There’s a wonderful back story that needs a brief telling. One of Robinson’s closest friends on the Dodgers was a shortstop from Kentucky, Peewee Reese. When the Dodgers took the field in Cincinnati in 1947, the fans heckled Robinson mercilessly, calling him every vile name you can imagine. Reese walked over and stood next to his friend, threw his arm around his shoulders and stared down the crowd until the noise stopped. That act cemented their friendship.

Do well tell our children about that event? Of course we should!

Yet the likes of Tom Cotton would have us ignore that element in our great nation’s otherwise storied history.

No nation in the history of our planet has come of age without suffering through painful chapters. The United States of America has a few of ’em. Racism is a story that needs to be told to our children … and no, it won’t make them “hate America.”

So, if we’re going to salute and honor Jackie Robinson, we need to tell the whole story of what this great man was able to accomplish. Some of it is painful. Still, let’s tell it … and teach it to our children.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Herschel Walker: dumbass

Gosh, I hate speaking badly about a guy I used to admire when all he did was pack a football and run with it for thousands of yards during his career.

However, that ex-gridiron star, former Heisman Trophy winner Herschel Walker of Georgia, is now running for the U.S. Senate and all I can say about him is that he might be the biggest dumbass running for high office in this election cycle.

Walker is running as a Republican. He wants to succeed Sen. Rafael Warnock, one of two Democrats elected to the Senate in 2020 from Georgia.

I have heard some of the nonsense that comes from Walker’s pie hole. One utterance, caught my attention. He recently said while disparaging evolutionary science that “If man came from monkeys, why do we still have monkeys?”

Isn’t that just a real knee-slapper? Actually, that isn’t even an original quip. I heard the late comic George Carlin say it many years ago. So, Walker not only is a dumbass, but he’s a dumbass who cannot offer many original thoughts.

Sen. Warnock has done a creditable job in the Senate. He has become a leading voice of the Senate’s progressive caucus. He also has plenty of what one could call “cred” among African Americans, given that he is African American. What’s more, when he is not writing federal law, he preaches at Ebeneezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, where the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered the Holy Word to his parishioners.

It occurs to me that this contest could offer voters in one state a chance to stop the dumbing-down of Congress by returning a man with considerable intellect — Sen. Warnock — and rejecting a man with next to zero understanding of how government works … and who cannot even produce an original quip.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news

What happened to speed issue on 380?

1 Comment

Mike Robertson’s name came to my mind today while waiting for Princeton’s mayor, Brianna Chacon, to cut a ribbon and officially open the city’s municipal government complex.

Who is Mike Robertson? He once served on the Princeton City Council and once told me he wanted the Texas Department of Transportation to slow the traffic along U.S. 380 to mph from both ends of the highway route through the city.

Then he decided against seeking re-election to the City Council. He was gone from City Hall.

My concern rests now with the issue he raised. I visited with Robertson a little more than a year ago for a story I wrote for KETR-FM public radio at Texas A&M-Commerce. Robertson spoke of the varying posted speed limits along U.S. 380, how motorists could drive 55 mph as they drove past Princeton High School, but then have to slow to 45 mph as they moved into the middle of the city.

Robertson said he intended to lobby TxDOT — which manages the highway — to reduce the speed limit to 40 mph along U.S. 380’s entire right-of-way through Princeton. I presume he would have allowed the city to post 35 mph limits in front of the high school during certain times of the day, when students are going to school and going home from school.

Robertson’s time on the council has ended. I believe, though, that the issue — and the concerns — he raised are as legit now as they were when he first raised them.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

We are headed for catastrophe … seriously!

Excuse my tendency to push the proverbial panic button with regard to the midterm election, but I have to declare my fear that we could be headed for governmental catastrophe if Congress flips from Democratic to Republican control.

Indeed, I am concerned about Mitch McConnell become majority leader if the Senate flips. Today, though, it’s House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy who has earned the bulk of my wrath. McCarthy truly gives me the heebie-jeebies.

McCarthy wants to become speaker. If the House flips to his party, then he stands a good chance — I fear! — of being chosen speaker. What does that mean for those of us who favor good government? It means the House well could launch a torrent of probes designed to embarrass Democrats.

It well could become payback time in the People’s House.

Why do I worry about McCarthy? Because we now have a possibly presumptive speaker who has been recorded on audio saying something he actually well could deny he said, which was that he intended to encourage Donald J. Trump to resign from the presidency in the wake of the 1/6 insurrection.

He said as much to Rep. Liz Cheney. Then he denied saying it — until an audio recording surfaced.

This guy is a coward. So is Mitch McConnell, to be candid. Both of these individuals blamed Donald Trump for “provoking” the Capitol Hill riot on 1/6. Then McCarthy voted against impeaching Trump and McConnell voted to acquit him in the Senate trial that commenced after the second impeachment.

Will any of this occur? The tides are moving toward a GOP blowout on Election Day. That the president’s party would suffer a congressional election setback is not unusual. It is usually the case. Both legislative chambers have razor-thin Democratic majorities, so it won’t take much for the GOP to take control of the legislative branch of government.

I just worry for the sake of good government, though, that the next speaker of the House could be a cowardly liar who backed away from his condemnation of what the world saw occur on 1/6 and then sucked up to the Insurrectionist in Chief.

I don’t want the catastrophe to occur. Nor should anyone who values this democratic process of ours.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news

Princeton takes major step forward

The city my wife and I now call home today took a major step forward with a wind-swept ceremony welcoming the opening of its new municipal complex.

Princeton, Texas, has for a few weeks been operating its city government out of a shiny new complex just east of Princeton High School on the north side of U.S. Highway 380.

They cut a ribbon today, listened to some music from a local band, and served some finger food and assorted treats to those of us who came to the event.

It’s a big deal! Check that … it’s a very big deal!

As City Manager Derek Borg noted, the city moved from its cramped 3,400-square foot city building on Main Street into a rented site on U.S. 380 about two decades ago. Then a landowner donated some property to the city, which then floated some certificates of obligation to pay for construction of what they unveiled officially today.

The complex today comprises about 60,000 square feet — or about 20 times the size of the Main Street office. It will serve the city “for decades to come,” Borg said.

To be clear, they aren’t yet finished putting all the finishing touches on the property surrounding the complex. They’re still laying down sod and are sweeping the dirt off the paved walkways around the wetland next to City Hall.

I just have to tell you, though, that the new complex is beaut.

Mayor Brianna Chacon and Borg both have stipulated that the city hall design featuring lots of glass is meant to symbolize the city’s intent to govern in a “transparent” fashion. Given that I still am new to Princeton, and I lack institutional knowledge of how the city has run until now, I will withhold comment on Princeton’s governmental history.

However, I will offer a word of hope that the symbolism expressed by the design of the municipal complex translates to actual transparency as the city spends the investment we taxpayers are making.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

DC riot

Did she violate her oath? Yep!

The 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution says this in Section 3 of that amendment; it provides a vivid explanation of who can serve in Congress.

It states: No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

A member of Congress, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Georgia Republican, is being challenged by those who believe she engaged in an insurrection on 1/6. That she helped incite the crowd to storm the Capitol Building that day.

If she is found culpable, her congressional career could end.

OK, recognizing my own bias, I believe she did what she is accused of doing and that she should be denied the chance to seek re-election from the 14th Congressional District of Georgia.

The QAnon-believing, Stop the Steal, Big Lie believer has been nothing but a pain in ass since she took her seat in Congress in early 2021.

But … let’s allow this evidentiary hearing process to play out.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

DC riot

Will House GOP boss deny saying what we heard?

Politicians are known to be among humankind’s slipperiest subspecies, correct? That said, I am intrigued with how U.S. House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy is going to slither his way out of what the whole country has heard him say about Donald Trump’s conduct during the 1/6 insurrection.

Hmm. How does this go?

Two New York Times reporters have stated that McCarthy said he would call Trump shortly after the 1/6 riot and urge him to resign from the presidency. McCarthy said the House would impeach him for inciting the riot and that the Senate very well could convict him.

OK so far?

Then McCarthy denied saying what was reported. His office issued a statement declaring the reporting to be false.

But wait! Then came the recording. We hear McCarthy’s voice telling Rep. Liz Cheney that he would urge Trump to quit. That was him on the recording, right? I know McCarthy’s voice when I hear it and it damn sure sounded just like him.

Where does this go? Good grief! I have no clue, other than it exposes McCarthy to be the lily-livered coward many of us have believed him to be. He excoriated Trump shortly after the insurrection, then flew to Florida after The Donald left office and had his picture taken with him hanging out in Trump’s glitzy resort/home.

McCarthy has his sights set on becoming the next speaker of the House, presuming the Republicans take control of the body after the midterm election. Therein might lie the biggest takeaway from this tumultuous development.

Do American voters really want a sniveling coward leading the House of Representatives? Is this what lies in store for the country once we count those ballots?

God help us!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

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