national news

Michael Cohen: hero or zero?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I am trying to figure out my feelings toward Michael Cohen, the former Donald Trump lawyer/friend/fixer who has turned ferociously against the man to whom he once pledged blind loyalty.

Cohen has written a book titled “Disloyal.” He has been making the talk show circuit from his home, given that he remains under house arrest for crimes he committed on Donald Trump’s behalf.

Cohen is a convicted perjurer, which is a legal word that means “liar.”

Now, though, he is trying to make amends for lying on Trump’s behalf. Cohen has talked about the treachery he performed for Trump, how he got sucked into Trump’s cult of personality. About how he fell for Trump’s sales pitch.

This mixed feeling I have toward Cohen is driving me a bit batty. My first instinct would be to salute Cohen for acknowledging the wrong turn he took years ago. However, the damage he did while working for Trump wipes away a good bit of that instinct to cheer Michael Cohen.

I don’t know if I will purchase “Disloyal.” I know a lot already about the man for whom he worked. He won’t tell me much of anything I don’t already believe about him. He says Trump’s hatred of Barack Obama is based exclusively on President Obama’s race … to which I say, “no sh**?”

Maybe, over time, my feelings about Cohen will crystallize. I cannot get there just yet. He means to make amends. I’ll at least give him credit for making the effort. For now, that’s the best I can deliver to this convicted liar.

national news

Trump undermines our electoral system

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

When have you ever heard of a president contend that an election will be “rigged” in any context? When has a president been so callous, careless and contemptuous of our electoral system to suggest that it would be corrupted enough to produce a result that he doesn’t prefer?

I am astonished beyond measure at the rhetoric that is coming from Donald John Trump as he seeks to undermine the very electoral system he took an oath to protect.

Trump has been beating the “Democrats will rig the election” drum. He stands before rally crowds and declares that the Democratic Party is seeking to “rig” the 2020 election by sending out “millions of ballots” to people who aren’t entitled to receive them.

For starters, there is not a single shred of truth to Trump’s specious assertion. Beyond that particular lie — which is precisely what it is — there is the very idea that Trump would seek to undermine the electoral system.

Just ponder that for a moment.

Trump’s presidential oath included a pledge to protect the system of government he was elected to run. What in the name of constitutional integrity is Donald Trump seeking to do here? I think I know. He seeks to torpedo the very electoral system by sowing seeds of doubt over its integrity.

His target du jour is mail-in voting. Several states have been conducting all-mail voting for years. Trump says the system invites widespread voter fraud. No! It does nothing of the sort!

My home state of Oregon was the first state to enact a vote by mail system. It did so in 1998. A study by the Heritage Foundation, a noted conservative think tank, has revealed some fascinating data.

During the time Oregon has allowed voting by mail, Heritage uncovered 15 cases of outright voter fraud. How many ballots were cast during the time period examined? Nearly 15.5 million of them!

Fifteen cases of fraud against 15.5 million total ballots. Does that look to you like a case of “rampant voter fraud?”

And yet … Donald Trump keeps hammering at the voter fraud red herring as if it’s the real thing. It is a figment of Trump’s political strategists. It poses a serious danger to our very system of free of fair elections.

To think that this is all coming from the president of the United States. Despicable.

national news

Biden needs to avoid this tag

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Joseph R. Biden Jr. needs to do all he can to avoid being labeled by historians as the candidate who lost a presidential campaign to an incompetent, immoral, corrupt politician.

Donald Trump is the aforementioned individual Biden is facing in the upcoming presidential election. Will the incumbent slither his way to a second term as president? I have no possible idea.

I am hoping for all I can that Biden defeats Trump bigly.

However, Trump’s uncanny knack of wiggling free of political crises gives me the heebie-jeebies. While it is weird enough that Trump managed to defeat a demonstrably more qualified candidate for president in 2016, it would be far beyond bizarre for Trump — with the hideous record he has compiled in his current term as president — to pull it off again this year.

You have to get busy, Mr. Biden. Millions of us are counting on you.

environmental news

Forest management vs. climate change?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Donald J. Trump continues to deny the impact of climate change on our nation and the world.

He went to California today to “inspect” the damage being done by fires that are ravaging the Pacific Coast states.

Does he say a word — anything at all — that recognizes the impact that climate change is delivering to those suffering from Mother Nature’s wrath? Nope. He said states need to do a better job of “managing” their forests. They need to clean them up better, get rid of the fuel that dries up and explodes in flames.

Oh, wait! How does this situation develop? I am going to presume that climate change is bringing about the intense fires.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom declared that the “debate is over” regarding climate change. I believe the governor is correct. I also believe the president is wrong to focus on forest management as a way to extinguish the flames.

media news

Minds are made up

1 Comment

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I get this question on occasion. It’s fairly rare that someone asks, but given that I get the query, I’ll speak to it briefly here.

The question: Why don’t you engage people who disagree with statements you make on your blog?

I generally dislike engaging in a give-and-take because people’s minds are made up. As is my own mind. I am not going to change anyone else’s view of a public policy issue and, I dare say, neither will anyone likely change my own mind.

That’s the short answer. A more expansive response seems appropriate.

I write this blog as my final statement on an issue. For instance, I have published an endless stream of posts that assert that Donald J. Trump is fundamentally unfit for the office he occupies. I have sought to say why I believe that throughout this man’s foray into political life. My mind is made up. I will not be persuaded to change my mind that Trump is somehow actually fit for the presidency. What would be the point of going back and forth with someone who believes Trump is the next “great president”?

It’s pretty much true on most issues. I tend to make up my mind before I post something on High Plains Blogger.

This does not mean I do not welcome critical comments. I most certainly do welcome them. Whether you respond directly to the blog’s site on Word Press, or on Facebook, or any other social medium that distributes these posts, I say, simply: Bring it!

I am highly unlikely, though, to argue with those critics. I am too old to waste my time trying to persuade someone that their views are all wrong and that mine are all right.

I just know it all to be true. That’s good enough for me. It’s also good enough for my critics.

military news

Why the silence, indeed?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I found this letter to the editor of the Dallas Morning News today that I want to share on this blog.

Five times I have written my congressman, Van Taylor, about his silence on reports of Russian bounties, the president’s alleged comments about prisoners of war, those killed in actions and wounded veterans. He has not responded directly. A staffer called after my letter on bounties but all he did was list the bills Taylor supported.

Taylor touts his service as a Marine. Why is he silent on the statements from Trump, actual and alleged, that denigrate military people? Has he forgotten why he served and those with whom he served?

Michael Bulkeley, Richardson

***

Rep. Taylor is my congressman, too. He is a first-term Republican whom I have met and discussed some local issues. He seems like an earnest young man.

However … I want to echo Mr. Bulkeley’s letter to the DMN. Taylor, though, is far from alone in the GOP silence on reports that Russian goons have paid Taliban terrorists bounties for Americans they have killed on Afghanistan battlefields.

We are witnessing a shameful and shocking fealty to a president who has demonstrated a horrifying disrespect for those who make the kinds of sacrifice that he infamously sought to avoid during the Vietnam War. Van Taylor, given his combat experience as a Marine in Afghanistan, ought to be yelling the most loudly in challenging Trump’s silence on the Russian campaign against our fighting forces.

He isn’t. Nor are his GOP colleagues in both chambers of Congress.

Think about this for a moment. Traditional Republican politicians would be aghast to hear such things about this longstanding hostile foreign power. Donald Trump has acknowledged already that he has declined to bring it up with Vladimir Putin during several phone calls he has had with the Russian president. What the hell?

The GOP congressional caucus also has sat in stone-cold silence over The Atlantic story in which Trump reportedly called service personnel “suckers” and “losers” if they are injured or killed in combat. Indeed, has Rep. Taylor called Donald Trump out for the remarks attributed to him in The Atlantic? I am waiting patiently.

What we have here, I daresay, is a Republican political caucus that is too beholden to an individual. It is a disgraceful example of blind and muted loyalty to a president who demands it of others but who refuses to return that loyalty to those who defend our nation.

national news

‘We’ll negotiate’ … what?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

There he was, standing before a crowd of worshipers ranting in a riff about a “rigged” election and making what I consider to be a rather startling declaration if — heaven forbid — he actually wins re-election.

Donald Trump said “We’ll negotiate” a way to stay in office past a second presidential term.

I damn near shook the glasses off my face at that one.

Trump keeps yapping about how badly he was treated during much of his current term in office. About the Robert Mueller investigation into alleged “collusion” with Russians seeking to interfere in our election. About the House of Representatives impeaching of Trump over abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. About the ongoing findings by intelligence officials that Mueller was right, that the Russians did interfere.

So what does Trump propose to do at the end of a — gulp! — second term? He wants to see how he circumvent the U.S. Constitution to finagle a third term in office.

The Trumpkins arrayed before him at the Nevada political rally cheered Trump’s ridiculous call to “negotiate.” They likely don’t believe that what he said is practically impossible. That he is likely just saying such a thing to rile up the “base.” That it’s just campaign-trail grist.

The 22nd Amendment that limits presidents to two elected terms is rock solid. It won’t be tinkered with by a goofball who thinks he is above the law, which I should add got him in trouble with the House that impeached him.

I just have to circle back to the most fundamental question of the moment: How can we allow a president who makes these kinds of ridiculous assertions to stay anywhere near the White House?

Get him outta there!

national news

Trump defames elections officials

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Donald Trump’s incessant and profoundly absurd claim of a “rigged election” in the event of a loss to Joseph Biden rubs me raw at so many levels.

I keep wondering how county elections officials, regardless of their political affiliation, must feel when they hear Trump make those terrible and defamatory assertions about the fairness of the election in case he comes up short.

If you’re a county clerk and you run an election office you must wonder just how Trump believes you can “rig” an election to push Biden across the finish line ahead of the incumbent president.

I have known a number of county clerks in Texas and in Oregon, where I worked in journalism for all those years, and to a person — man or woman, Republican or Democrat — they are dedicated to their profession. They all take an oath to defend the same Constitution that the president swears to defend. They all swear to follow the law and to ensure that everything they do is above board.

However, we keep hearing from Donald Trump that they won’t do what they swear to do if they preside over an election system that produces a winner whose name isn’t “Trump.”

How in the name of good government can this fellow get away with making these specious, egregious and ridiculous allegations?

Donald Trump clearly is the first president in U.S. history to cast such a forbidding pall over a system we know has been compromised already by Russian spooks working to elect Trump in 2016. Indeed, the Russian interference four years ago and their second act that is underway as we sit here makes me wonder whether the “rigging” is working in reverse of what Trump says will occur if he loses his re-election effort against Biden.

None of that will shut the motormouth of Donald Trump. He will continue to defame local election officials. There is no other way to describe what he is doing.

It is defamatory language fit only for an autocratic demagogue. It has no place in a representative democracy that prides itself on the fairness of its electoral system.

environmental news

What’s happening back home?

1 Comment

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I lived in Oregon for my first 34 years of life on this Earth.

Not until this year have I seen the devastation that is occurring at this moment in my beloved home state.

I am heartbroken. Moreover, I am aghast at the scope of the fires that have swept through entire neighborhoods in the southern part of the state. I saw the pictures this morning out of Phoenix, a town near Medford. Words escape me.

What are we to make of the destruction that is threatening the Pacific Coast region? Washington is ablaze, as is California. Washington Gov. Jay Inslee wants to label the fires “climate change fires,” not just “wildfires.” Inslee ran briefly for president this year, vowing to make climate change the signature issue of an Inslee administration. He won’t get the chance to set federal policy as president, but he is making a valid point about what climate change is doing to my home state and the states that border it north and south.

Will the federal government pay attention? We can be assured that Donald Trump won’t listen to the pleas of the governor he called a “snake” earlier this year. I doubt he’ll listen to Oregon Gov. Kate Walsh, or to California Gov. Gavin Newsom. Their biggest “sin,” along with Inslee, is that they are Democrats who also happen to believe that Earth’s climate is changing and that human activity has contributed greatly to what is happening at this very moment to their states.

I, too, believe climate change has exacerbated the destruction from the flames. I also want the federal government to step up its fight against the factors that have contributed to the unfolding tragedy.

I am enough of a realist to understand that the feds’ involvement will remain muted as long as Donald Trump sits in the Oval Office. Let the peril facing our good Earth be just one more reason to send the current president packing.

national news

2020: Year of the First Responder

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I am pretty sure we all agree on this point: 2020 sucks out loud.

This calendar year has been one of the most eventful, consequential — and miserable — years many of us can remember. Our grandparents no doubt recall the Great Depression and then World War II. Then we had 1968, which brought the Vietnam War to a head and those terrible political assassinations.

But this year stands alone. The pandemic has killed hundreds of thousands of human beings. Now we have the fires that are sweeping through the three Pacific Coast states.

All of this is my way of saying that 2020 surely must be deemed The Year of the First Responder.

Heroes walk among us. They are the nurses and doctors who are tending to coronavirus patients. These nurses and doctors also are doubling as surrogate loved ones for patients who die alone; they cannot have their actual loved ones near them because of the highly infectious nature of the coronavirus, leaving the handholding to the medical pros who put their own lives on the line just tending to their patients.

Now comes the fires. The firefighters and police officers are plunging into the Hell on Earth in California, Oregon and Washington. They are running toward the flames. They are flying aircraft into the choking smoke. They are hugging victims of the fire, trying as best they can to lend comfort in a time of unspeakable tragedy.

Oh, we also have that presidential election coming up. Who’ll win it? Well, whether it’s Joe Biden or Donald Trump, the editors at Time magazine need not worry about naming one of them the magazine’s Person of the Year. They are playing second fiddle to the heroes in our hospitals, in our school classrooms, in our forests and our neighborhoods.

We all want the circumstances that are making this the most memorable year to end. I happen to stand in awe of those who are answering the call to help their fellow men and women in distress.

Stand tall, heroes.

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