national news

Right wingers win the argument … so far

This is no great flash to those who are smarter than I am, but I have concluded how the right wingers out there are able to outshout the rest of us in this so-called “battle of ideas.”

They succeed because they appeal to Americans’ base instincts. We are so very quick to criticize those in power. The right wingers, therefore, are appealing to Americans’ lowest common denominator. It is fueled by ignorance.

Thus, when I see President Biden’s diminishing approval ratings in public polls, I see an opportunity for Biden’s supporters to strike back … and hard!

The obvious consequence will be that the quality of the political debate will sink faster a cruise ship that hits an iceberg.

The equally obvious alternative is to let the MAGA crowd win the argument, which then will lead to MAGA candidates emerging victorious.

I do not want that to happen. I do want the reasonable center-left and even some “mainstream Republicans” to tear a page from the MAGA playbook … and then hit the far right wingers with the same demagoguery they have been pitching.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

International news

And the war slogs on

We have been fixated – and rightly so – on gun violence and ways to reduce it, if not end it altogether. I just want to remind everyone that we have a war underway on another continent that deserves our attention as well.

Those damn Russians continue to bombard Ukrainian targets and they continue to kill Ukrainian civilians in their attempt to further the aims of the dictator who sent them into battle illegally. That would be Vladimir Putin, the despot about whom Donald J. Trump used to speak so glowingly in his effort to make nice with a known killer.

Joe Biden has all but declared Putin to be a pariah among world leaders. Which is an apt description. He has called Putin a war criminal. By my reckoning, war criminals need to be prosecuted for crimes against humanity and, if convicted, they deserve to be punished.

Does that mean Putin needs to go to prison for his crimes against Ukraine? For his targeting of hospitals, schools, churches and apartment complexes?

Well, uh, yeah! Do you think?

The Ukraine War slogs on. It continues to break my heart, which already is shattered by tragedy here at home.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news

So long, Big Jake

RAY ROBERTS LAKE STATE PARK, Texas – We have taken Big Jake the Pickup on the final excursion we will share with the beast.

Big Jake is headed for somewhere else. My wife and I hope the big ol’ Dodge Ram finds a new home with owners who will love him as much as we do. We expect Big Jake to continue to give the new owns as much satisfaction as he delivered to us for many years.

What you see behind Big Jake is our new travel trailer, the severely downsized version of the recreational vehicle we continue to take on our retirement journey to points hither and yon.

I must acknowledge, though, that hither and yon will be a good bit closer to home than we have taken our previous RV. These fuel prices are killin’ us, as you can imagine.

What is taking Big Jake’s place? We have ordered a Ford Ranger pickup. Ford Motor Company notified us this week the truck has been built per our specs, it’s been inspected, and it is being shipped as I write this brief blog post.

We took Big Jake and our travel trailer to a state park we have visited before. Lake Ray Roberts is just a bit north of Denton, about 60 or so miles from our house in Princeton. It’s a gorgeous park, as are practically all the parks within the Texas Parks & Wildlife system.

I am just posting this blog to let you know that our travel plans are being amended slightly, at least while the fuel prices continue to zoom out of sight. I do hope they can return to something resembling sanity.

As for Big Jake, it’s getting time to say so long to the muscular truck that has taken our previous RVs to both coasts, through the western half of Canada, to the Great Lakes and to more than 30 state parks in Texas. Big Jake served us well.

As for our Ford Ranger, the new vehicle doesn’t yet have a name. I am toying with naming the truck Kemo Sabe. Think for just a moment about the symbolism of the name.

Meanwhile, our retirement journey continues.

Johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Bring on the fireworks

I keep getting teased by reports of “explosive” testimony at the 1/6 hearings that will be televised beginning Thursday night.

One of the explosions reportedly will come from recorded testimony offered by Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner, who have told the House select 1/6 committee about what they saw during the insurrection, how they implored Daddy Donald Trump to “do something” to stop the riot and how Daddy Donald did, shall we say, not a damn thing.

Let’s remember something about the ex-POTUS: He has yet to express a single word of regret about what happened that day when he incited the riot that erupted on Capitol Hill; not a word of sadness over the death of the police officers, not a word of regret that rioters defecated on the floor of Congress; not a single expression of remorse that the crowd that gathered on The Ellipse that morning had spun out of control.

Now we well might be treated to “explosive” testimony from Ivanka and Jared that Donald Trump let the riot continue, allowed the traitors to threaten to “hand Mike Pence!” and conspired with others within the White House to launch a coup to prevent Joe Biden to assume the presidency he won in a fair, free and legal election.

Whatever occurs during the several days of televised testimony, you can count me as a surefire audience member who will be listening to every word. I’ll make sure I’m sitting far enough from the TV to avoid any blowback from the blast.

Johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

RFK … oh, how I miss him

Robert Francis Kennedy died 54 years ago today.

He had been shot the previous day just as he declared victory in the California Democratic Party presidential primary. Sen. Kennedy had righted his campaign and well might have won his party’s nomination later that year in Chicago.

He also might have been elected president of the United States in the fall of 1968. Alas, fate had other plans for RFK.

He fought for his life for 24 hours before succumbing to his wounds.

RFK left behind a nation full of those of us who remember fondly his promise of a new day of peace. He wanted to end the Vietnam War, a war he once supported on behalf of his brother, President John F. Kennedy. The carnage on the battlefield and the lack of a winning strategy became too much for RFK.

He wanted American forces to leave Vietnam and he vowed to do whatever he could do as president to ensure that day would arrive much sooner than it eventually did.

I was in my late teen years when Bobby Kennedy died. I would venture to Vietnam the following spring. I came home later as confused as I was when I reported for duty. I kept asking: What was the point, the mission, the end game? I didn’t know and I couldn’t find a senior military officer who knew the answer, either.

I wanted, therefore, to take a brief moment to recall the grievous loss of a political titan who well could have delivered us from the misery we were about to endure.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

DC riot

Hope vs. fear

I am full of equal parts hope and fear as the U.S.  House 1/6 select committee prepares to air in public much of what it has heard in private about the insurrection that occurred on the Sixth of January, 2021.

I hope that the public will rally around what I am certain will be appalling evidence that the former president conspired to overturn the results of a fair and legal election.

My fear is that The Donald’s cultists will be energized to label it all as “fake news” and well could win the argument that will ensue.

Moreover, I hope that the public’s rage at what it learns will erode even more Trump’s hold on the Republican Party, that he will be seen as the clear and present danger to the democratic system of government he once took an oath to protect.

Then again, I fear that the Trumpkins’ grip will tighten and the GOP will continue to nominate certifiable nut jobs to high office.

We’re coming up on the 50th anniversary of the burglary at the Democratic National Commitee offices in the Watergate complex. On June 17, 1972, seven dipsh**s were caught rifling through files. The coverup that ensued found its way to the White House. President Nixon had to resign.

He quit because he was told by Republican senators he didn’t have the support within the body to survive an impeachment trial.

My hope is that enough Republicans will surface after the public revelations of the 1/6 insurrection that Trump will be forced into hiding, never to be seen or heard from again.

My fear is that the Republican Party today is populated by cowards.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

military news

‘OK … we’ll go’

Seventy-eight years ago, soldiers from the Greatest Generation of many countries stormed ashore on a French shoreline. Their aim: to liberate Europe from the clutches of history’s most despicable tyrant.

The D-Day invasion began. Within a year of that massive operation, the architect of that despotic regime in Nazi Germany would be dead. The shooting stopped. The rebuilding of a shattered continent would begin.

The ranks of those brave warriors are down to a fraction of those who commenced the beginning of the end of World War II in Europe are depleted now to a fraction of those who took part. Time’s relentless march has claimed those men, but we always must honor what they did.

The invasion force was led by American, British and Canadian soldiers who landed on five beachheads. They were supported by many nations allied in the common goal of liberating Europe.

I want to call attention to one of the Americans who led that effort: supreme Allied Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower.

He issued the order to launch the invasion with the simple command, “OK, we’ll go.” Weather had forced one postponement. Then the men set forth on their journey into history.

I want to call attention to a message that Gen. Eisenhower was prepared to share had the operation failed. Ike would take full responsibility for a failure had the Nazis been able to push the invaders off the beach that day.

He wrote: “Our landings in the Cherbourg-Havre area have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold and I have withdrawn the troops. My decision to attack at this time and place was based on the best information available. The troops, the air and the Navy did all that bravery and devotion to duty could do. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt it is mine alone.”

He did not have to deliver that message. Instead, he declared to the world that the forces under his command had secured the beachheads and had begun their march inland. He didn’t take singular credit. On the contrary, he praised the gallantry and heroism of the fighting men who risked everything to secure liberty’s blessings for those who suffered under the most oppressive tyranny imaginable.

Gen. Eisenhower was the consummate leader.

All any of us can do so many decades later is thank those men for their sacrifice.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

State news

Where is the police chief?

Come out, come out, wherever you are … Pete Arredondo!

The Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District chief of police is missing in action. Meanwhile, the community he took an oath to protect — namely the parents of the students in the school system — are demanding answers from the embattled chief.

Arredondo was the man in charge of the police response to the madman who strolled into Robb Elementary School brandishing an AR-15 and who then killed 19 precious children and two heroic teachers.

Uvalde school police Chief Pete Arredondo faces calls for accountability | The Texas Tribune

A grieving community is demanding to know a number of answers relating to a blunder that Arredondo committed. He waited more than one hour before sending the cops in to confront the shooter.

To be clear, Arredondo shouldn’t bear this blame alone. The Department of Public Safety also was on hand. So was the U.S. Border Patrol. And, oh yes, we have the Uvalde municipal police department.

What we have developing is a clusterf*** of tragic proportions.

But we have one man who can provide answers to a grieving community, state and nation.

Pete Arredondo needs to speak to us.

As in right now!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

political news

Politics outshines politicians

I long have believed that politics is a noble profession, in that it is designed to serve the public, to do the public’s bidding. We pay for public policy decisions with our money, so those who enact that policy are doing noble work.

Except for this reality.

Politicians too often do not stand up under the standard set by their chosen profession.

I read in the Washington Post, for example, that U.S. senators say that a deal is within reach that would seek to curb gun violence in this country. However, what emerges from the Senate conference rooms will not contain all of the things on President Biden’s wish list. Therein lies the meaning of what I am suggesting.

The president — a lifelong politician, to be sure — has implored Congress to “do something” in the wake of the Uvalde school slaughter of those 19 precious children and two of their teachers. “Enough is enough,” he said the other evening.

Politicians heard him. Some of them ignored his plea because they are too beholden to the money that pours in from those who oppose any legislative remedy to the senseless slaughter. Others applaud the president.

What happens now? Some senators are huddling to find what they will call a solution. It won’t live up to the billing. Yet the politicians who cobble together this alleged remedy will praise themselves for their “bipartisanship.”

Pols do this every couple of years when the latest continuing budget resolution runs out. They take the nation to the brink of fiscal calamity, only to craft another continuing resolution. Oh, and then they slap themselves on the back and tell us all how great they are. They make me sick.

What will it take for politicians to live up to the standard set by the craft they pursue? Just stop playing games … especially now when lives are at stake!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news

Are we no longer shocked?

The thought occurred to me a little while ago, which is that I cannot remember my reaction to the first incidence of mass slaughter, the first time I heard about a gunman opening fire and killing dozens of innocent victims.

There have been so many of them, it appears I might be hardening somewhat to these tragedies. I do not want to harden my heart.

The Uvalde massacre in Texas has hit me harder, perhaps, than most of the recent events. Nineteen fourth-graders were gunned down along with two of their teachers. President Biden has implored Congress and state legislatures to “do something” to stop the carnage. I have some hope this time that we might get something done, although not nearly enough.

But, my goodness, there have been so many communities linked by these horrific events. There are too many of them even to list. Doing so would likely result in my forgetting one or more of them. They all have broken our hearts.

Abcarian: Endless mass shootings make our outrage dim. We can’t let gun violence harden our hearts (yahoo.com)

It’s just that these events are occurring with such sickening frequency that I fear we’re becoming — odd as it seems — numbed to them.

If left to a choice between frequency and shock value, I would prefer to be shocked.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Commentary on politics, current events and life experience