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AG pick vows to take aim at domestic terror

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

America’s greatest enemy well might live, work and play within our own borders.

That potential enemy is going to be the No. 1 focus of the man picked to be the next attorney general. Merrick Garland, a federal judge selected by President Biden to lead the Justice Department, today vowed to battle domestic terrorists wherever they seek to do their evil deeds.

He also vowed to pursue those on extreme left as well as on the extreme right. More to the point, Garland told the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee that he considers the Jan. 6 attack on Capitol Hill by the riotous mob be the most heinous attack on our government in our nation’s history.

The Wall Street Journal reported: “I think this was the most heinous attack on the democratic processes that I’ve ever seen, and one that I never expected to see in my lifetime,” Judge Garland told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Monday. He added that the current investigation into the riot—which has led to around 250 people facing criminal charges to date—appeared to be “extremely aggressive and perfectly appropriate.”

Merrick Garland Puts Focus on Domestic Extremism (msn.com)

Garland spoke to the Judiciary panel; he is likely to be approved strongly by the committee and confirmed with a significant bipartisan vote by the full Senate. Then he can get to work.

Indeed, there must be plenty of work done. The nation witnessed a horrific attack on our democratic system of government on Jan. 6. The House of Representatives impeached Donald Trump just as he was preparing to leave office a week after the attack. He incited the insurrection, but a Senate trial ended with his acquittal when senators fell 10 votes short of convicting him.

The probe must go on. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has declared the need for a bipartisan investigation into the events leading up to the attack. Now we hear from the presumptive attorney general, declaring that he considers domestic terrorism to be his top priority. That, too, is welcome news.

What’s more — and this is critical — Garland told senators that he won’t be cowed by political pressure from anyone, including the president.

“I do not plan to be interfered with by anyone. I expect the Justice Department will make its own decisions in this regard,” Judge Garland said. “I would not have taken this job if I thought that politics would have any influence over prosecutions and investigations,” he said.

William Barr made a similar pledge as well, but it didn’t turn out that way while he ran the DOJ. Merrick Garland’s reputation commends him for the task he has been asked to undertake.

Rest assured, there will be plenty of American who are watching to ensure he makes good on his pledge to pursue the truth behind the heinous attack on Capitol Hill.

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Let go of ‘Big Lie’

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Donald John Trump just cannot — or will not — let go of the Big Lie.

The U.S. Supreme Court today struck down his attempt to shield eight years worth of tax returns from Manhattan, N.Y., prosecutors who are examining whether he committed campaign finance crimes.

It means that they are now entitled to subpoena those  returns to pore through them in search of potential evidence.

Trump said: “I will fight on, just as I have, for the last five years (even before I was successfully elected), despite all of the election crimes that were committed against me. We will win!”

Election crimes? Are you serious … Donald?

Once more with all due hostility: There were no “election crimes” committed against Trump in the 2020 election. There was no “widespread vote fraud,” no “illegal ballots cast,” nothing that would swing the result.

He is living the Big Lie and is fomenting it among the wild-eyed fanatics who continue to support the former Liar in Chief.

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This is success? Hardly!

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Let’s face facts.

The United States of America comprises 5 percent of the world’s population.

However, our great nation accounts for 20 percent of the worldwide death toll attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic.

These two statistics are worth noting because of a third number: 500,000, which is the number of Americans who have died from the pandemic in a year.

I mention this yet again because we were told a year ago by the then-president of the United States that we had the disease “under control.” It wasn’t.

Is the disease under control now? There exist signs that it well might be starting to be corralled. Vaccinations are being delivered. Americans are wearing masks, are keeping their distance from each other and avoiding what doctors all “congregant settings.”

That is progress. If only we could have been spared the lies about having a killer “under control.”

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Tanden’s budget cred is lacking

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

The media and political operatives have focused on Office of Management and Budget director nominee Neera Tanden’s stormy tirades on Twitter while they debate whether the Senate should approve her nomination.

Progressives are giving her a pass for the mean tweets she has put out there; Republicans are simply appalled, aghast and offended that she would be so angry. Actually, the GOP’s faux sensitivity is laughable on its face, given that so many Republican senators were willing to look the other way when Donald Trump was savaging his political foes with some of the most petulant tweets one can imagine coming from a president of the United States.

They are missing what I believe is the essential point over Tanden’s nomination, which is that she isn’t qualified to run OMB.

Tanden is a fierce partisan. I don’t begrudge that part of her background, per se. She also lacks any serious experience managing the kind of agency President Biden has asked of her. She has worked for progressive think tanks. Tanden has worked as an unpaid adviser  to political campaigns.

Her background is shallow. For the life of me I don’t understand what President Biden thinks what kind of experience she brings to the tough work of managing a massive federal budget.

I’ve enjoyed listening to her political commentary in recent years. She and I are on the same political page. She preaches to the proverbial choir when I listen to what she says. I just don’t know if she has the financial chops required to do the job President Biden is asking her to do.

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SCOTUS clears way for probe of ex-POTUS

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Let’s admit it: We are a nation of Nosey Neds and Noras. A lot of us  want to know all we can know about the individuals elected to govern us.

Such as their financial condition. It’s only right … right? Yes.

So it is that the U.S. Supreme Court has cleared the way for the Manhattan prosecutors to subpoena the tax records of a former president of the United States, Donald John Trump, to determine whether he broke any laws.

This is huge deal. I am among those who wants to know more about the former president’s financial dealings.

I want to know if he is as rich as he kept bragging he was; whether he manipulated property valuations to obtain financial favors; whether he broke campaign finance laws when he paid the porn star $130,000 to keep quiet about a sexual encounter — that he says never happened; and whether he has given any money to charity.

Supreme Court refuses Trump effort to block tax return subpoena (msn.com)

This is relevant especially for those who supported Trump during his two bids for the presidency, the second of which he lost bigly to President Biden.

The court didn’t specify any particulars in its decision, nor did any of the justices issue any public dissents from the court ruling.

Yes, I know that Trump is now a private citizen. That doesn’t matter in this instance. He has been all over the pea patch on this tax return matter. He said he would release them, then he back off that promise, then he said he would do so again, then he blocked efforts to reveal them to the public.

He has lied incessantly for as long as he has been a politician … and likely long before that period in his life.

Let’s see the returns. Those of us with inquiring minds want to know the truth — finally.

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Those were the days

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

A news report about the deep divisions between Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill brought to mind something I learned many years ago about the Texas congressional delegation.

The state’s U.S. House members, divided between Ds and Rs, would meet each week for breakfast. They ate with each other. All of them! They would sit in the congressional dining hall and talk to each other about common ground. They would discuss the state’s myriad problems.

I believe I heard this tale during the era when a Texan, Fort Worth Democrat Jim Wright, was serving as speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. I cannot recall at this moment whether Wright instigated the weekly breakfast meetings. All I do remember is that the congressional collegiality among Texans was legendary on Capitol Hill.

A Congressional Quarterly story about the Texas delegation’s weekly meetings compared the relative good cheer among our state’s lawmakers with the open hostility among other states’ delegations. I believe the CQ story compared Texans’ warm feelings with the chill that hung over the California delegation.

Bear in mind something about the Texas congressional delegation in the 1980s. The delegation included some fierce partisans on both sides of the aisle. My congressman was a fellow named Jack Brooks, a Democrat from Beaumont who was a crusty, irascible, profane, cigar-smoking, former Marine who pretty much detested Republicans. He had next to nothing nice to say about his GOP colleagues. I recall him telling me once that he thought President Reagan was dumber than a potted plant.

But he would go to those breakfasts with his colleagues. All of them. Republicans and Democrats.

I don’t know if they’re still meeting these days in that fashion. Nor do I know whether anyone within the Texas congressional delegation has the stature or the commanding presence of Speaker Wright.

Instead, I hear stories these days about House members fearing their colleagues. They actually are frightened by the prospect of working with them, of sitting beside them in the House chamber. They fear someone on the other side of the room is going to shoot them, for God’s sake.

My strong belief is that the current Texas congressional delegation just isn’t wired collectively to exhibit the kind of camaraderie that made its predecessors the envy of Capitol Hill.

Too bad.

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Cruz seeks to make amends?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

What you see in this picture is the image of a man who was caught demonstrating his true character and who now is seeking to create an image of altruism.

Ted Cruz, the notorious junior Republican U.S. senator from Texas, was photographed cutting barbecue at a charitable event for Houston firefighters this weekend. It was nice of him to do so, yes?

Well, let’s put it in a bit of perspective.

He had gotten onto an airplane the other day to fly on vacation with his family; they were jetting to Cancun, Mexico. Big deal? Yeah, it is. Cruz was leaving while the state he represents was struggling with bitter cold, power outages, water shortages; his constituents were suffering. So he decides to be a “good parent” and take his daughters to the Caribbean resort.

It didn’t go over well at all. Critics pounded him mercilessly. Cruz returned to Texas way ahead of schedule. He admitted to messing up. He didn’t stand his post where he should have stood doing his job as a senator representing Texans who needed his help.

I am not going to give him a pass just because he showed up to cut some ribs for firefighters. He’s trying to make up to Texans.

He did the damage when he boarded the airplane and sought to get away from the misery. That initial action — not the gesture he was photographed doing — is the more accurate measure of the man.

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Put on your ‘Comforter in Chief’ cape, Mr. POTUS

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

President Biden is coming to Texas to perform one of the unwritten tasks of the job he inherited just a bit more than a month ago.

He is coming as the nation’s Comforter in Chief. I hope he is up to the task that lays before him.

I spent a good deal of emotional capital over the past four years blasting to smithereens Biden’s immediate predecessor’s unwillingness to lend comfort to Americans in trouble. I will spare you any more tirades on that score.

Biden is coming here to survey the damage done by the nasty winter storm that paralyzed so much of the state. You know the drill by now: Power went out, darkening millions of homes; the water supply failed, too, forcing millions of Americans to boil their water before consuming it. Indeed, many Texas communities to this very day still do not have water or their residents are still forced to boil it.

What can the president do in a single visit to a ravaged area? Not much. I am acutely aware that such visits serve mainly to provide the head of state an up-close look at the damage and to enable him to speak to local officials and to their constituents about the path forward.

President Biden is known as a touchy-feely kind of guy. There likely won’t be much hugging or up-close chit-chat between the president and those who are still suffering. The COVID-19 pandemic has forced all of us to keep our distance, even from a president whose presence among us likely will become part of the man’s presidential legacy.

I fully expect President Biden — despite the restrictions he will face — will demonstrate fluency in the language he must use to tell Texans the things they need to get some level of comfort.

It goes with the job.

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Biden declares 77 Texas counties to be in ‘major disaster’ mode

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott wanted all 254 of Texas’s counties to qualify for “major disaster” relief from the U.S. government.

President Biden granted that status to 77 of them, or a just a bit less than one-third of what Abbott had sought in the wake of the terrible Texas snow and ice storm.

I saw the list of all the counties and, as a Collin County resident, I was heartened to see my county on the list of declared places, along with Dallas, Denton and Tarrant counties. Others in our immediate area received the designation. So did other major counties, such as Bexar, Travis, Harris and their immediate surrounding jurisdictions.

One of the regions where I once lived, the Golden Triangle, also got the disaster declaration, but the Texas Panhandle did not get that designation.

I was struck, though, by the absence of Hunt County from the list of counties to receive federal aid under the designation. Commerce’s water supply system went kaput. It came back, but the city has been on a boil-water advisory for several days; the advisory is expected to last a while longer.

What does it take, therefore, for the Federal Emergency Management Agency to declare a county a “major disaster” when that county is suffering through, um, a major disaster?

I cannot really know what goes into the decision-making processes within FEMA. I just am an observer of how various jurisdictions within my particular orbit are dealing with the mess that the storm has left behind. From my perch in Collin County, it looks for all the world like our neighbors to our east — in Hunt County — are going through precisely the same tragedy that Mother Nature brought to my neighbors and my family members.

Abbott called the disaster declaration from President Biden a “good first step” in helping our state recover. Perhaps a “good next step” would be to expand the list of counties that receive this disaster declaration.

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Ask others, Texas

(Photo by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

This bit of wisdom comes from a social media acquaintance of mine.

He writes: How ’bout asking people from colder climates how they supply themselves with renewable energy and take a step toward a future that is in their past? If Texas can’t lead, can it at least follow?

Texas politicians, utility regulators, energy suppliers and most certainly customers are trying to blunder their way out of the mess we’ve just endured in this state. Our power went out. Utility executives seemingly made bone-headed decisions on the power grid. Our infrastructure froze and failed. Many of us remain without adequate potable water supplies.

Granted, we aren’t used to these kinds of plummeting temperatures in Texas. We need to prepare better for the next time it happens.

So, as my acquaintance has suggested, Texas pols ought to get on the horn with their colleagues in, say, all the northern tier of states where this kind of winter event is commonplace.

No politician — especially, I have discovered, those in Texas — wants to depend on others for such advice. They want to stand on their own feet. They want to deal head-on with even the most complicated and thorny issues.

It’s like the male driver who refuses to ask directions when he’s hopelessly lost. Take it from me, that kind of “independence” is vastly overrated; I say that as someone who is not bashful about asking for directions.

So, if we cannot come up with solutions here about how to protect our energy infrastructure from future calamity, ask those who know how to do it and ask them how they have managed to produce renewable energy at a level that powers their communities — and keeps their customers warm at night.

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