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No more weather misery, please

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

There well might be a snicker or two coming from places north of this part of Texas. That’s fine. They can giggle, chortle and snort all they want, given that they know a thing or three about heavy snow and plunging temperatures.

I just am delighted to know that we are powering through the misery that visited us a week ago when that Arctic blast swooped down on us. A week ago, we awoke to zero-degree temperature. Our home was dark. The water wasn’t running.

But … we soldiered on. We got through it.

Now, to be sure many Texans are still struggling with water quality issues. The lights are on, but they still have to boil water before drinking it. We managed to wiggle our way out of that particular issue in Princeton, Texas. Yes, the city issued a boil-water advisory when it restarted its treatment plant, which had failed when it lost its power. The city then rescinded the advisory a couple of days later.

Were we prepared for this event? Hah! Hardly. That might be source of the snickering up yonder.

Here is my hope for the Texas Legislature, which is one month into its planned five-month legislative session: Lawmakers need to find solutions to the crisis that unfolded here; they need them on the books this session and sent to Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk, where Abbott needs to sign them into law.

I’ll be candid. The cost of those remedies don’t give me much pause. I mean, we went through hell around here. If we can get our energy grid better suited to handle this kind of freeze, then I am willing to pay the price. OK, spare me the lecture about whether I would pay “any price.” I have my limits, just like everyone else.

We are products of our surroundings. I have never lived in a place that gets buried by snow every year, or has to endure sub-zero temperatures each winter. I have a cousin who lives in St. Paul, Minn.; we have two nieces who were born in Alaska; another cousin of mine once lived in the Land of the Midnight Sun (and Perpetual Darkness) as well.

Today is a new day for us here in North Texas. The sun will come out later. The temperature will rise to a seemingly “balmy” 60 degrees.

Few of us will forget the nightmare … and while we’re at it, let’s send good thoughts to those who still are battling water quality issues.

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Start looking for new OMB boss, Mr. POTUS

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Neera Tanden’s status as the next director of the federal Office of Management and Budget suddenly has run into a serious roadblock.

U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin, a West Virginia Democrat, has said he will oppose her nomination when he gets to vote on it. That means a 50-50 Senate composition puts Tanden’s nomination in serious jeopardy. All of the Senate’s 50 Republicans will oppose her selection; Democratic support stands at 49 votes maximum. Got it? She cannot be confirmed, if the numbers hold up.

To be honest, I was skeptical of her nomination from the get-go … and not because of her fiery Twitter messages that savaged Republican lawmakers. My concern always had been that she is light on budgeting experience. To be candid, I am not clear why President Biden chose her in the first place.

Politico reports: Two early contenders to replace Tanden are Gene Sperling, a two-time director of the National Economic Council, and Ann O’Leary, who just came off a stint serving as California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s chief of staff, and who was considered a leading alternative to Tanden back in November when Tanden’s nomination was announced, according to people familiar with the matter.

The jockeying to replace Neera Tanden has begun – POLITICO

At one level it is laughable on its face that GOP senators would be angry because of her partisan Twitter messages, given that the 45th president of the United States used that social medium to inflict serious insult and damage to his foes.

Even without all of that, Tanden’s pick is suspect, given that she is a hard-core partisan and someone with little experience implementing budget policy on a scale required by the OMB director.

“I believe her overtly partisan statements will have a toxic and detrimental impact on the important working relationship between members of Congress and the next director of the Office of Management and Budget,” Manchin, a moderate Democrat, said in a statement. “For this reason, I cannot support her nomination.”

Whatever. It looks to me as though her Twitter activity should be the least of the issues that work against her.

President Biden ought to start looking seriously for someone with actual budgetary chops to handle a daunting task.

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Cruz needs to ‘show up’

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Ted Cruz is continuing to take heat over his ill-conceived, ill-advised and ill-considered family vacation to Cancun, Mexico.

The Texas Republican U.S. senator deserves every single bit of it.

The latest broadside comes from state Rep. Jeff Leach, a fellow Republican from Plano, a former member of the conservative Freedom Caucus. Leach says Cruz erred badly by jetting off with his family to the resort in Mexico while the state he represents is suffering from the ravages of the monstrous winter storm.

Freedom Caucus loses a member . . . more to follow? | High Plains Blogger

Leach said, “It’s important for us to show up, to be present, such a big part of leadership is to be present, and as state representative for over 200,000 people here just north of Dallas, I’m here, I’m present, I’m on the ground, I’m available. I work for the people, not the other way around. They’re the boss, not the other way around. It’s important for us as policymakers to show up for work and do our jobs.”

Texas Republican Slams Ted Cruz’s Cancun Trip, as Second GOP Lawmaker Under Fire for Fleeing State (msn.com)

This is the kind of criticism that Cruz can expect perhaps until hell freezes over. Cruz has shown a propensity for popping off about other elected officials’ misbehavior, all of which seems to heighten the hypocrisy quotient for what he did.

Cruz’s abrasive, aggressive and rampant ambition hasn’t exactly endeared him to many of his Senate colleagues. I am finding it hard to find anyone standing up for him, although there well might be someone out there who can excuse his dereliction of duty.

I am going to side with state Rep. Leach. I mean a big part of being a good leader is just showing up.

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Infrastructure needs help!

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Texans from Amarillo to McAllen, from Texarkana to Texico and from Orange to El Paso all got a serious wakeup call this week.

It is that “infrastructure improvement” includes much more than roads, bridges, airports and ship channels. It also includes natural gas pumping stations, wind farms and perhaps even petroleum pump jacks.

Texas claims to be proud of its energy production machinery. However, we seem to have neglected taking sufficient care that it works during rough weather.

Yep. We had some rough weather this week … you know?

I’ll set aside until later a discussion about the mismanagement of the power capacity, which was the result of some pi**-poor decision making at the top of the electricity grid management chain of command.

The state’s energy infrastructure needs to be winterized, upgraded,  made to withstand what well could become more frequent dramatic climate events such as what we endured.

It won’t be an easy task. As the Texas Tribune reports: Energy experts said that in some cases, retrofitting plants to withstand cold could be extremely difficult and expensive in Texas. Many of those plants already skimped on such upgrades due to the infrequency of prolonged and widespread subfreezing temperatures in the state.

What it means to winterize Texas’ energy plants | The Texas Tribune

I get that events such as what we saw don’t happen all that often in Texas, except perhaps in  the Panhandle — where my wife and I lived for 23 years before we moved to Collin County in 2018.

Texas’s utility system operates under the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which is independent of other major regional electricity management concerns. It failed us, folks. It didn’t turn out to be so, um, “reliable.”

How do we winterize the network? Many experts believe the natural gas transmission system should be Priority No. 1, given that LNG provides the bulk of the energy that Texas uses to power its electrical plants. One thought is to enclose the plants during the winter, protecting them from nature’s cruel blasts.

Look, I am not an engineer. I don’t have specific solutions to offer. All I know for certain is what my wife and I experienced at the first part of this hellish experience. Our power went out because of system failure, as did our water … for the same reason. 

A state that proclaims to be energy dominant should not expose its residents to the nightmare that millions of them are experiencing at this very moment.

If we’re going to invest in infrastructure, we ought to start — and perhaps even finish — with our energy grid. It needs help to withstand the wrath that well could present itself with more frequency in the future.

That’s what is likely to occur when Earth’s climate is changing. More on that, too, to come.

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Is the ‘big tent’ folding?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Republicans are proud to proclaim their party as a “big tent” organization that welcomes all ideas, all points of view.

Why, then, are state GOP leaders rebuking some of the seven Republican U.S. senators who voted to convict Donald Trump of inciting an insurrection during the Senate trial that acquitted him of the allegations?

Sens. Richard Burr, Lisa Murkowski, Pat Toomey, Bill Cassidy and Ben Sasse have been censured by their states’ Republican Party. Sens. Mitt Romney and Susan Collins so far have avoided such a rebuke. So far!

Sen. John Thune has come to the defense of his GOP colleagues, chastising the state parties for their actions against the senators. He notes that the party prides itself on welcoming diverse opinions.

According to Newsweek: “There was a strong case made. People could come to different conclusions. If we’re going to criticize the media and the left for cancel culture, we can’t be doing that ourselves,” Thune, the No. 2 Senate Republican, told the Associated Press.

Republicans Hit Back at GOP Censures of Senators Who Voted to Convict Trump (msn.com)

There you go. Is the GOP a “big tent party” or not? If it is, then the tent appears to be collapsing over them.

This matter reminds me of the kind of thing you hear on university campuses when conservative thinkers are asked to give speeches to student bodies. How many times over the years have you heard about faculty senates and student council leaders demanding that their schools rescind the invitation because they don’t want to hear what the guest has to say.

I am compelled to ask when that rejection occurs: Aren’t colleges and universities supposed to welcome diversity of thought?

This intraparty squabble only exemplifies what many of us have thought for some time, that the GOP’s big tent is open only to those who adhere to a certain kind of thought, or are loyal only to certain individuals.

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President for ‘all Americans’

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

President Biden’s campaign pledge to be “president for all Americans, not just those who voted” for him sprang to mind as he made a major disaster declaration for Texas.

Why is that a big — or even a medium deal? It’s because his predecessor at times politicized these decisions, taking aim at officials in states that didn’t vote for him in the 2016 election; the California wildfire disaster comes immediately to mind.

Biden approves major disaster declaration for Texas: FEMA (msn.com)

President Biden has told the Federal Emergency Management Agency to pull out all the stops to help Texas recover from the monstrous winter blast that knocked power out for millions of Texans and continues to cause major water-quality problems for thousands of us.

It’s interesting, too, that the White House has been working closely and feverishly with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican who was one of those who refused to recognize initially that Joe Biden, a card-carrying Democrat, was really and truly elected president in 2020.

None of that matters one damn bit … not to Gov. Abbott now or to the president.

Presidents do govern the entire country and must answer to all Americans. They also must set aside partisan differences when Americans are suffering.

As the saying goes: We live in the United States of America.

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Take a bow, media

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

The national media, which a prominent — and now thoroughly disgraced — U.S. politician once labeled “the enemy of the people,” have demonstrated time and time again their value to contemporary society.

How do I know that? Because the media have been reporting in agonizing — and, yes, uplifting — detail the experiences we have been enduring during the Deep Freeze of 2021.

It’s good to take a moment to ponder how the media have reported the good as well as the bad associated with the storm that paralyzed much of the nation, most notably the damage it did in Texas.

I also want to salute the subjects of many of the stories chronicled by the media, specifically the Good Samaritans who have answered the call to help their neighbors, family members and even total strangers who have suffered from power outages, burst household plumbing and the assorted miseries that accompany all of that.

They have raised money, transported food, delivered potable water, provided shelter or just offered a word of comfort and encouragement. I know that because the media have told their stories.

It’s been difficult at times to smile during this trying experience. Yet I have managed to shed a tear or two of joy at what I have been told is happening in Texas and across the land during this severe winter event.

Oh, and then there’s this: This tragedy struck many of us while the nation and the world battle the killer pandemic and that story, too, has produced more reason to smile. Yes, people are still getting sick and still are dying, but the vaccines have arrived and are getting injected into our bodies. The infection rate, at least for the time being, appears to be spiraling downward. 

The media are telling us that story as well.

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‘America is back’

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

President Biden has made it abundantly clear that the nation he was elected to lead is going to return to the world stage.

There will no more talk of “putting America first” at the expense of our nation’s international alliances.

Biden spoke to his fellow G7 leaders this week during a virtual conference and informed them in no uncertain terms that he intends to reverse the direction that his presidential predecessor intended to take the nation.

The nation has rejoined the Paris Climate Accord; the U.S.A. is re-engaging in negotiations with Iran with the aim of preventing the Islamic Republic from obtaining a nuclear weapon; he has affirmed out commitment to NATO; he also has put Russia on notice that he won’t be “pals” with that nation’s strongman leader.

Donald Trump sought to stiff our allies whenever and wherever possible. Joe Biden is not wired that way. He intends to demonstrate his understanding that the world is figuratively shrinking and that the United States intends to reassert its role as the world’s pre-eminent world power.

This is what presidents of the United States have done for the past 100 years. I am one American who supports the tone that President Biden is taking.

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I love being a statistic

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

OK, I am just a number, but I welcome it.

I happen to be one of the 15 million or so Americans who’s been completely vaccinated against the COVID-19 pandemic. My bride will join me in that category of Americans in just one week.

What I want to report is that today’s second dose of the vaccine was done with a fraction of the anxiety of the first one. How is that? No lines, man!

We drove again from Princeton, Texas south along U.S. Highway 75, through Dallas and ended up once again at the North Texas VA Medical Center. We parked our truck and walked in.

I peered down the hall, looking for a line of veterans waiting to get vaccinated. There were none there! Huh? The nasty weather might have kept some folks from making the trip to the VA center. A VA staffer told me the morning crowd was much larger. Whatever. I guess I am the master of impeccable timing.

I checked in and then was ushered immediately into the large room with 20-something booths where vets were receiving their vaccines.

The nurse peppered with a few questions about my health at the moment. I answered them correctly, I got the shot in the arm, walked into a waiting room for the obligatory 15-minute post-vaccine observation period and then walked out. My wife and piled into our truck and returned home.

In and out in, oh, 22 minutes!

Wow! I will sing the praises once more for the service I receive from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. The VA came through for me when I needed it. I expect the same kind of treatment for my bride when she reports for her second vaccine provided by Collin County’s Health Department.

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It’s all about Cruz’s mouth

(AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Do you want to know why this kerfuffle over Ted Cruz’s aborted vacation in Cancun is gaining such traction?

I am going to tell you anyway, even if you don’t care one little bit?

The Republican U.S. senator from Texas has taken great pains to blast the daylights out of other politicians — chiefly Democrats — who take vacations at inopportune times.

Thus, it is Cruz’s mouth that has gotten him into trouble.

Cruz jetted off from Houston to vacation with his wife and daughters at the very time Texas is struggling to recover from serious Arctic blast that resulted in millions of Texans losing electrical power, natural gas to heat their homes or water to drink.

He tried to pawn it off on his daughters, whose schools were closed because of the weather. They asked Mom and Dad if they could go somewhere warm. Sen. Cruz and Heidi Cruz obliged. The family took off for Cancun. Then the fecal matter hit the fan.

Cruz then  returned home. To his credit (I reckon), he has apologized for messing up. Still, the story will be tough to kill and bury. Why? Because the junior senator from Texas has made a nagging habit of sounding sanctimonious as it regards politicians’ working and vacation habits.

He tore Austin Mayor Steve Adler a new one in December because Adler vacationed in Cabo San Lucas while the city he governs was struggling with the pandemic. Cruz is on record saying that Congress shouldn’t take vacations when there is so much damn work to be done. They should just work, work, work until the job is finished, he has said.

So what does the Cruz Missile do now? He wants to be a good parent and leave the country — not just the state — while Texans are suffering grievously.

As the saying goes, “Words have consequences.” Those words carry a particular consequence when a politician who utters them intones a high degree of self-righteousness while castigating others … and then does the very thing he condemns.

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