national news

Ya gotta watch this … really!

Ted Cruz speaks at 2021 CPAC: Full speech – YouTube

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

The link I have attached to this very brief post is of Ted Cruz, Texas’s infamous junior U.S. senator, the guy who sought to flee to Cancun while the state he represents shivered in bitter cold weather.

I just don’t have anything to add to this video, other than it is about 17 minutes long. Cruz is speaking to fellow fanatics at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, Fla.

He is one of the warmup acts, I suppose, for Donald John Trump, whose speech Sunday night will bring CPAC’s meeting to a close.

Cruz is just truly despicable.

That’s all I have. B’bye … for now.

medical news

Human rights, (cont.) …

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Human rights ought to extend to those who reside in a country without proper documentation … and that certainly includes those living in the United States of America.

Therefore, I endorse President Biden’s view that undocumented immigrants are entitled to receive COVID-19 vaccines without fear of being arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers.

It’s a matter of public health, Biden told Univision television interviewers. Thus, a danger to undocumented immigrants is a danger to all with whom they come into contact while going about living in the United States.

“I want to make sure they are able to get vaccinated and so they’re protected from COVID without the ICE or anyone interfering,” Biden said. “They should… not be arrested for being able to get a vaccination.”

Spare me the criticism that Biden is pandering. The president vows to protect all Americans and, indeed, all residents of this nation.

According to The Hill: The comments follow an announcement from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) earlier this month that said ICE was not conducting enforcement activities at or near COVID-19 vaccination sites.

“It is a moral and public health imperative to ensure that all individuals residing in the United States have access to the vaccine,” the agency said in a statement at the time. “DHS is committed to ensuring that every individual who needs a vaccine can get one, regardless of their immigration status.”

Biden: Undocumented immigrants should get vaccine without ICE targeting them (msn.com)

These individuals’ immigration status can be handled separately, apart from the need to get them vaccinated against a virus that continues to sicken and kill U.S. residents — regardless of whether they are citizens, are here legally or illegally.

It is a human right to be protected against this pandemic.

International news

‘Human rights’ has returned

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

For four years the words “human rights” were rarely uttered by the president of the United States.

Now they have returned to the presidential vernacular. President Biden’s statement this week after the release of intelligence on the death of a prominent Washington Post columnist includes a fulsome statement about the need to protect the rights of all human beings.

The report blames Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammad bin Salman, for ordering the brutal murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a Post columnist and critic of the Saudi regime. President Biden has refused to sanction the man known as MBS, fearing some long-term harm to U.S.-Saudi relations. I wish he would have dropped the hammer on MBS, but that’s another story.

It’s out: MBS ordered killing | High Plains Blogger

As for the human rights mantra, I welcome its return to the top of our foreign policy pecking order.

We must stand in this country as a beacon of individual liberty and respect for the rights of all humanity. Only the president of the United States can speak to that priority and only the POTUS can alert the world that we mean it when we invoke those rights for everyone.

Human rights did not get much attention from Donald J. Trump. Indeed, the ex-president sought to curry favor with despots and dictators, such as, oh, North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, by proclaiming some sort of bizarre “love affair” with him. Of course, Trump infamously refused to criticize Russian bad boy Vladimir Putin for anything, let alone for the way he treats those who live under his ham-fisted rule.

I hope those days are gone. I also hope to hear much more from President Biden on the value he will place on human rights. May he say it loudly and often going forward.

environmental news, State news

Texas feels the shame

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Texas continues to take its lumps over the near-disaster we experienced a week ago.

You see, a state that has prided itself on its ruggedness, its independence and its know-how is being pounded over the failure of an electrical grid that was supposed to carry the state through the worst weather imaginable.

It sure didn’t do the job.

Indeed, now we hear that the Electric Reliability Council of Texas was about four minutes away from a total collapse.

As Ezra Klein wrote in the New York Times: Second, it could have been so much worse. Bill Magness, the president and chief executive of ERCOT, said Texas was “seconds and minutes” from complete energy system collapse — the kind where the system needs to be rebuilt, not just rebooted. “If we had allowed a catastrophic blackout to happen, we wouldn’t be talking today about hopefully getting most customers their power back,” Mr. Magness said. “We’d be talking about how many months it might be before you get your power back.”

How does Texas save its face? How does it recover from this mess, which darkened electrical output for 4 million Texans?

One thought might be to join the two other major electrical grids and give up this notion of Texas running its own grid. ERCOT already is suffering from resignations of seven board members, all of whom quit in the wake of the power failure.

It doesn’t make me feel at all good about my adopted home state.

As Klein writes: It wasn’t even the worst cold Texas experienced in living memory: in 1989 temperatures and electricity generation (as a percentage of peak demand) dropped even further than they did in 2011. Texas hadn’t just failed to prepare for the far future. It failed to prepare for the recent past.

Opinion | Texas Is a Rich State in a Rich Country, and Look What Happened – The New York Times (nytimes.com)

Let us demand some actual leadership from our, um, leaders on this matter.

Yes, we’re a rich state. However, we seem to suffer from a poverty-level absence of bright ideas on how to prevent a recurrence of what we all endured. No one likes freezing.

national news

CPAC = idolatry

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

What you see in this picture is an utterly disgusting image I just had to share on this blog.

It was taken at the Conservative Political Action Conference meeting in Orlando, Fla.

The image here appears to be some sort of faux gold statue of Donald John Trump. I am trying to grasp the profound repulsiveness of it.

All I can come up with is that it depicts Trump as some sort of idol to be worshiped by the CPAC attendees who will listen this weekend to the message/lies that Trump will offer them.

I am out! You look at this picture and draw your own conclusions.

national news

Forget how they look … masks save lives

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

When I watch the news and notice President Biden making public appearances while wearing a mask, I cannot help but think of something his predecessor said about mask-wearing in light of the killer pandemic.

Donald J. Trump dismissed the idea of wearing a mask, saying something about how unbecoming it would be for the president of the United States to wear such a thing. He was worried about appearance.

Hmm. So, Trump exits the political stage — and not a moment too soon — and gives way to President Biden, who doesn’t appear to be worried about such mundane matters. Biden wears a mask. He has asked all Americans to wear masks for at least the first 100 days of his administration. My wife and I have heard his request and are following suit.

I am not going to suggest that we are doing it out of “patriotism,” which Biden insists ought to be the driving force. We are seeking to protect ourselves and those with whom we come in contact. Wearing a mask is not a big deal. Indeed, reaching for a mask before I enter a grocery store is becoming more “normal” than not reaching for it.

All of this is my way of welcoming the new outlook and the leadership that is coming from the White House.

Make no mistake, too, that President Biden is willing and able to talk candidly with us about the savage toll the pandemic is exacting on us. His predecessor routinely sought to downplay that, too. Amazing.

Watching the president of the United States conduct matters of state while wearing a mask only highlights the foolishness that came from his predecessor, an individual who was more concerned about appearances than he ever was about saving lives.

International news, media news

It’s out: MBS ordered killing

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

The world knew already what U.S. intelligence officials released for public review: the Saudi crown prince ordered the assassination of a renowned Saudi dissident journalist who also happened to be a U.S. resident at the time of his hideous murder.

Jamal Khashoggi was strangled and dismembered. His remains haven’t yet been recovered. Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman ordered it because of critical columns that Khashoggi had written for the Washington Post.

The Biden administration today released the findings of the probe. The Trump administration had refused to let us know what the spooks determined.

I am glad to see President Biden reversing his predecessor’s hands-off policy regarding MBS. I wish, though, he would level harsh personal sanctions on the crown prince rather than backing off. Yes, the president intends to sanction others within the Saudi government and will sanction the nation as well; he will suspend arms sales and other deals intended to strengthen the Saudi position in the Middle East.

However, the bad guy in all of this — the crown prince — is going to skate away without punishment.

CBS News is reporting on the intelligence findings: “We base this assessment on the Crown Prince’s control of decision making in the Kingdom, the direct involvement of a key adviser and members of Muhammad bin Salman’s protective detail in the operation, and the Crown Prince’s support for using violent measures to silence dissidents abroad, including Khashoggi,” the report says.

Intel report finds MBS approved “capture or kill” Khashoggi (msn.com)

So, still, there is no punishment being handed out to this evil character? Amazing!

We are proud in this country of standing up for liberty and for the free flow of information and dissent. Khashoggi wasn’t a U.S. citizen, but he lived here and worked for a leading U.S. newspaper, the Post.

President Biden has whiffed on this one.

International news

U.S. back in the game

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Justin Trudeau has welcomed the United States back to the role of international leader.

Thank you, Mr. Canadian Prime Minister. I am one American who is glad to see our country embraced as the world’s most indispensable nation. That it comes from our longstanding North American ally and partner, which shares the world’s longest unfortified border with us, is especially welcome.

President Biden and Trudeau met for the first time as fellow heads of government. Trudeau, of course, had what one could call a strained relationship with Donald John Trump, given that Trump imposed tariffs on Canadian goods exported to the United States. Oh, and he also questioned whether the Canadians were spending enough on defense given our nations’ membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

Trudeau seems to expect, with justification, a return to a more normal U.S.-Canada alliance with Joe Biden being elected president of the United States. Indeed, President Biden declared recently at the G7 virtual summit that “America is back” on the world stage.

Now, I totally understand the political popularity of Trump’s “make America first” policy. It helped elect him president in 2016. After four years of bitching, moaning and chaos brought about Trump’s petulance and unpredictability, American voters said “enough of that,” and turned toward Biden, a man with decades of foreign policy moxie and experience.

Is the new president going to conduct a hiccup-free foreign policy? Heavens no! However, if we are to accept Justin Trudeau’s assessment about the return of U.S. leadership, then we should hail the restoration of our nation’s role as the world’s leading military and economic power.

local news

Beyond ‘professional’

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

PLANO, Texas — It is time for a shout out to some folks who face a relentless crush of citizens, many of whom might be getting anxious and perhaps agitated as they await a valuable public service.

My bride and I just returned from John Clark Stadium, about 20 or so miles from our home in Princeton. My wife’s reason for going was to receive her second vaccine for COVID-19. We arrived and stopped at the end of a lengthy line of vehicles waiting to enter the parking lot.

What this brief post is about, though, is to commend the staff of employees that greeted us when we inched our way onto the parking lot and moved toward the processing stations.

These individuals could not possibly have been nicer, more courteous and downright friendly as they greeted us and then waved us on to the next stop along the way.

Think about something for a minute. They could have been coolly professional. Or, they could have been rude. The cool professional behavior is acceptable; rudeness, of course, is not. However, given the strain they might be feeling having to process thousands of North Texas residents through this line during a medical emergency, I can understand how someone might get a bit short-tempered.

Perhaps most astonishing was the greeting my wife got from the nurse who actually administered the Pfizer vaccine. “Is this your second shot?” the nurse asked. My bride said yes, it is. The nurse then all but gave her a high-five to congratulate her and to suggest we might want to “celebrate” the occasion. We all chuckled at the thought, but I remain amazed that a nurse who is replaying this drill thousands of times each week would take the time for a little — but much appreciated — levity.

If I had come equipped with gold stars to hand out, I would have done so in the John Clark Stadium parking lot. Absent that, this blog post congratulating and thanking them for their kindness will have to suffice.

Well done. Stay the course.

local news

Puppy Tales, Part 88: Brave and skittish

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Toby the Puppy has a remarkable memory.

He once was fearless. Nothing seemed to bother him when he joined our family in early September 2014. Then we went to a Fourth of July celebration in the summer of 2019. He heard fireworks exploding and, shall we say, became frightened by its sound.

Toby the Puppy hasn’t been the same ever since.

It is stormy tonight in North Texas. The sky is lighting up. The thunder is loud. My wife and I enjoy the sound. Not our beloved puppy.

The sounds that never used to make him flinch, now send him scurrying for cover.

Bear in mind that this is the same pooch who acts tough in the presence of much larger doggie beasts. He acts — and sounds with his big, throaty bark — like the meanest Rottweiler you’ll ever hear.

However, he isn’t mean. Not at all. He is gentle and let’s not forget that he weighs about 13 pounds.

Not even a Rottweiler could overpower the sounds we’re hearing tonight. So, our puppy is in good company.

If only we could persuade him that the thunder and lightning won’t hurt him. Or us.

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