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If only he would do this

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By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

If the 45th president of the U.S. of A. had an ounce, a smidgen, a sliver, the tiniest grain of decency buried somewhere within his overfed body, he would call a press conference.

Then he would say the following before taking a few questions from the media:

My fellow Americans, I am here today to urge every resident of this great land to get vaccinated against the COVID pandemic virus.

As you know, my family and I all have received our vaccines. Yes, my wife and I did so secretly in our final months in the White House. My point, though, is that we did it. I urge you all to follow our lead.

Do not listen to those who question the effectiveness of the vaccine. Do not heed the warnings of crazy things happening to your body. I am going to be a human testament to the vaccines’ effectiveness and their safety.

The surge in the Delta variant is rooted solely in the unvaccinated among us. We must stop this spread. Vaccines are the only way to do it.

***

The 45th POTUS won’t ever say such a thing in public. Why not? Because doing so would require him to reveal that he actually cares about you and me, about the country he once swore an oath to defend and protect and about those who have been stricken by the virus that has killed more than 600,000 Americans.

He won’t do it because he cares only about himself.

Lightning might strike. Were it to do so, we could save many thousands of lives.

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Let the probe begin

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

They’re going to start a congressional hearing that we all should hope will produce some clear-headed truth into what transpired on the Sixth of January this year.

That day we all witnessed an all-out assault on our democratic process by a mob of terrorists who could not accept that their hero — the 45th president — had lost a free and fair election to Joseph R. Biden Jr.

They engaged in the worst attack on Capitol Hill since the War of 1812. I am one American patriot who welcomes the select committee’s assignment given to it by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. It is to find the truth and to present ways to prevent such an egregious attack on our system from recurring.

Pelosi picks Kinzinger for select panel … yes! | High Plains Blogger

Will the select panel — comprising members of both parties — be able to conduct their investigation fairly and without bias? I believe it will. I do not expect the rabid minority among Americans to accept anything they present. Their minds (such as they are) remain closed tightly to anything that would cast POTUS 45 in a negative light.

The committee will proceed as planned. It will call witnesses. It will grill them intently on what they knew, when they knew it and what they did in real time to prevent to horrifying assault from enveloping the Capitol.

The process the mob threatened had commenced the certification of President Biden’s election. Biden’s predecessor hasn’t yet accepted that he lost the election. He continues to promote The Big Lie about vote fraud. Indeed, it was The Big Lie that led to the assault on the Capitol, to the injury of dozens of people — including police officers on duty to protect the Capitol and those who work there — and the deaths of several others … including one of those valiant officers.

To think that congressional Republicans are resisting this investigation is mind-blowing to the max. However, the investigation will commence. I will look forward to the select committee finishing its job and reporting to the rest of the world what it learned.

medical news

Vaccines alone can kill the virus

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

If it weren’t so damn hot outside at the moment, I might be inclined to climb a ladder onto the roof of my North Texas house and shout at the top of my lungs: Get your sorry ass vaccinated!

The temperature is 100 degrees. I am too old to be climbing up on roofs. So I am left to use this forum — my blog — to repeat a mantra I will continue to repeat until we see a reduction in the infection/hospitalization/death rate from the COVID-19 virus.

Or the variant it has spawned.

The misinformation war is still being waged. The antagonists are the right-wing propagandists who insist the vaccine does harm to our bodies and the the medical experts who counter that the vaccines — all of them — are safe and effective.

President Biden wanted to turn the corner on the vaccine by the Fourth of July. The nation fell short of the total vaccination goal the president had set. It is not his fault, I must reiterate, that we have failed to meet the goal. It’s the fault of the legions of liars who continue to sow doubt about the vaccines. They have blood on their hands in the form of the lives that are still being lost to the pandemic.

The delta variant continues to fell Americans. The vast, overwhelming majority of those who are falling victim to it have not been vaccinated. It is on them, therefore, to take responsibility for the illness they are suffering. And for the misery they are creating among their family members. Oh, and for the threat they pose to others who also lack the full vaccine.

I just don’t know what it is going to take to persuade enough Americans of the fatal folly they are pursuing by refusing the give up the partisan politicking in the midst of this war against a killer virus.

Meanwhile, I will continue to insist from my fully vaccinated house in Collin County, Texas, that only the vaccine can eradicate the virus.

Are we crystal clear? Good. Now, get the shot(s) you need to eradicate this killer.

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Golden Rule, anyone?

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

This story almost got past me, but I want to offer a brief response to what I believe is a growing trend among those who feel personally aggrieved by comments delivered by public figures.

Fox News talking head Tucker Carlson reportedly was accosted by a fellow who objected to the blowhard’s comments, presumably about the COVID-19 virus. Carlson was shopping with his family. The guy who berated him I suppose believed that since Carlson speaks to all of us via TV that it’s all right to speak to him in any venue, in any context, at any time.

Wrong! I harken back to the Golden Rule, the item in Scripture that instructs us to treat others as we would want to be treated. Therefore, I venture to suggest that no human being would want to be hassled, harangued and hectored by total strangers even if they are in the public eye spouting public policy.

I am not wired to confront individuals in that fashion. Other public officials have suggested that it’s OK to get in the faces of those who say objectionable things. I believe they are mistaken.

I also believe that everyone — even those in the public eye — are entitled to spend private time with family members.

Don’t lecture me about the First Amendment’s free speech clause. I know what it says and what it means. My reading of it, though, tells me it does not give anyone license to verbally assault other Americans whenever they damn well feel like it.

Let’s show some respect, man.

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Speak up, Mac!

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

There is no way on God’s good Earth that this will happen, but I am going to ask it anyway of a man I know fairly well.

Mac Thornberry no longer serves in Congress; he retired at the end of 2020 after serving for 25 years as a congressman representing the 13th District in the House of Representatives. He hails from Clarendon and represented the Texas Panhandle.

He was succeeded — certainly not replaced — by a blowhard right-winger, Ronny Jackson, who now says that President Biden should resign because he doesn’t have the mental acuity to do the job.

My request of Mac Thornberry is this: Will you issue a statement condemning the antics of the moron who succeeded you?

I have no direct contact these days with Thornberry. I don’t even know where he lives. Some of his key former congressional aides and allies do read this blog. Perhaps they will forward this request to him. I got to know Thornberry well, working for 18 years as editorial page editor of the Amarillo Globe-News. Mac and I started our new gigs during the same week in January 1995: he as a congressman and me at the AGN.

I am simply astonished and appalled at Jackson’s conduct since taking office. He has become a Twitter troll who models his public pronouncements after the 45th POTUS, a fellow he served for a time as White House physician. The ex-POTUS wanted Jackson to lead the Department of Veterans Affairs, but then pulled his nomination when it was alleged that the retired Navy admiral drank on the job and issued prescriptions to individuals whom, um, didn’t need them. He earned the nickname “Candy Man,” if you get my drift.

Now he’s in Congress and has become a favorite of right-wing media talk-show hosts because of his incessant criticism of President Biden. He has launched a senseless, mindless, brainless, thoughtless campaign against the COVID vaccine campaign, declaring as recently as this past week that the “pandemic is over.” Well, it ain’t over … doc!

As for Thornberry, he is enjoying retired life somewhere these days. I just wish he could expend some of the political capital he acquired by condemning the blather that keeps pouring forth from the guy who took his seat in Congress.

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Ex-POTUS builds legacy of turmoil

(AP Photo/Jeffrey Phelps)

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

The 45th president of the United States took office more than four years ago vowing to be an “unconventional” POTUS.

He didn’t deliver on many of his campaign promises, but he surely did on that one.

The man I refuse these days to ID by name on this blog has morphed into without question the most “unconventional” former president in U.S. history. He is building a legacy of mistrust, disbelief, deceit, self-enrichment and self-aggrandizement and, oh yes, all those lies — including the Big Lie about the outcome of the 2020 election.

Just as I refused to attach the term “President” directly to the former POTUS’s name while he occupied the nation’s highest office, I have taken to refusing even to type his name in any form. I cannot do it. The sight of his name — not to mention the sound of his voice — simply sickens me to the max.

I vowed not to dwell too much on POTUS 45 now that he has left office. I intend to look forward. I am doing so even as I bang out these few words about the former Insurrectionist in Chief.

This individual’s legacy is important to ponder as well. President Biden is seeking to craft a legacy of his own even this early in his term in office. He must do so against the backdrop of the legacy that his immediate predecessor left and which he is building now even as a private citizen.

I had harbored a hope that there might be a reckoning coming from POTUS 45, that he might decide to give up his idiotic pursuit of being “reinstated” as president. That he might call President Biden and say, “You know, Joe, I thought I had a shot at all this. It’s clear that I do not. Therefore, I am going to summon reporters tomorrow to my resort in Florida and tell them — and the world — that you are the legitimately elected president of the United States. I wish you success.” 

That won’t happen. His legacy will be built on the lies he’ll keep telling and on the idiocy that will continue to spew forth.

He still has a chance to turn the corner on an election he lost. Sadly, I fear he won’t take it.

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GOP now joins the vaccine bandwagon

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

There can be no excusing or even forgiving many prominent Republican U.S. politicians’ shameful denigration of the effort to vaccinate Americans against the COVID-19 virus.

Still, it is with a qualified feeling of gratitude that I welcome their insistence now that it is time for all Americans to get vaccinated.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell arguably is the most prominent GOP pol to climb aboard the vaccine bandwagon. Others are singing from that song sheet: U.S. House whip Steve Scalise, Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, even Kevin McCarthy, the embattled House GOP leader. They’re on board, too.

It wasn’t that many weeks ago in which some GOP politicians were dismissing the vaccine. Some of the nut jobs among the Republican congressional caucus — namely the QAnon and Freedom Caucus cabal — continue to actually applaud Americans’ decision to forgo vaccination.

They are the loony birds among the politically powerful elite who hold tremendous sway among too many American voters.

President Biden laments the “pandemic among the unvaccinated” that is driving up infection/hospitalization/mortality rates in the country. Biden is fighting a GOP contingent in Congress and in statehouses across the nation that are arguing an opposite message. The sad truth is that the anti-vaxxers are winning the argument … at least for the time being.

A glimmer of good news, though, is surfacing among many Republican politicians who have decided that the more of their followers who get sick and possibly die from the virus, the less strong their political power base remains.

If they can persuade enough Americans to turn the tide against the variant that is sickening so many of us, then I might be willing to forgive them for their utter irresponsibility.

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This clown is certifiable

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By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Good ever-lovin’ grief!

What in the world has become of our political discourse? Get a load of this piece of sh** commentary from a rookie congressman from the Texas Panhandle.

Ronny Jackson, a Republican, predicts President Biden will quit his office because he cannot pass a test of his mental acuity.

That is what this clown, a one-time physician, told Fox News’s Sean Hannity, who I suppose is in league with the fire-breathing loudmouth congressman.

The Hill reports:

“Donald Trump took a cognitive test. He got 30 out of 30 right. I hear it’s a very difficult test. I do not think Joe Biden would do well on that test. Is that a fair assessment based on what I’m observing?” Hannity asked Jackson.

“Absolutely, Sean, and I’ve been saying this from the very beginning. I’ve been saying that something’s going on here. I was saying this when he was candidate Joe Biden, and I’ve been saying that it’s only going to get worse, and guess what. We’re watching that happen right before our eyes right now,” Jackson said.

“There’s something seriously going on with this man right now, and, you know, I think that he’s either going to resign, they’re going to convince him to resign from office at some point in the near future for medical issues or they’re going to have to use the 25th Amendment to get rid of this man right now,” Jackson later added.

The Bozo doctor was White House physician when POTUS 45 lived there.

Ronny Jackson, former White House doctor, predicts Biden will resign (msn.com)

He once pronounced Biden’s predecessor to be the most fit man ever to serve as president. Now he is issuing diagnoses without ever consulting with the patient — Joe Biden?

Jackson also is offering half-baked, hare-brained “predictions” on the future of President Biden’s public career?

This clown is a disgrace to the office he occupies. I hope it’s a brief tenure in Congress.

medical news

Fauci gets his dander up

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

When someone who is in the public eye gets riled at a congressional hearing, then you have to suspect he or she has ample reason to step out of what we see as “normal behavior.”

So it was this week as Dr. Anthony Fauci took down another physician, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who accused Fauci of lying to Congress about the status of the nation’s fight against the COVID-19 pandemic and the delta variant that is wreaking so much havoc.

Let me be clear on this point. Sen. Paul is a medical doctor, but his specialty is ophthalmology. That is the study of disease involving one’s eyes. Dr. Fauci’s specialty involves infectious diseases of many stripes. Fauci is the expert on the COVID pandemic; Dr. Paul is not.

So … when Paul accused Fauci of lying to Congress, it fell on Fauci to fight back, to deliver a blistering retort, telling Paul that “you don’t know what you’re talking about,” and said that if “anyone is lying, it is you.”

Fauci took dead aim at the disinformation coming from the right wing of the political spectrum, where Sen. Paul sits.

Anthony Fauci took center stage when the 45th president appointed him to be part of the White House pandemic response team. He offered his advice and opinion on the state of play, only to be cast aside by the POTUS, who has called Fauci an “idiot.” He now serves as chief medical adviser to President Biden, who is letting the good doctor speak his mind without interference from the Oval Office.

Yes, Fauci has changed his tune a time or two about the virus. However, I continue to believe that he has learned about it as the world has learned more about the virus and its impact.

He has sought to de-politicize the argument about mask-wearing and other efforts to stem the infection, hospitalization and death rates caused by the virus. Yet when I hear cheap pols like Sen. Paul accuse him of lying while spewing the same fear-mongering nonsense that comes from the likes of the former Numbskull in Chief, it makes my blood boil.

I totally get why Dr. Fauci went off on Sen. Paul.

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Pelosi picks Kinzinger for select panel … yes!

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Adam Kinzinger is going to join another courageous Republican on a select congressional committee with the aim of finding out what the heck happened on Jan. 6 when the Insurrectionist in Chief egged on a mob to storm the Capitol Building.

Kinzinger is one of a handful of Republicans who voted to impeach the ex-POTUS for that act. Another Republican House member, Liz Cheney, also is serving on the committee selected by Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

GOP House leader Kevin McCarthy blames Pelosi for politicizing the process. Hah! McCarthy needs to check his defiance at the door and ponder something.

Congress had the chance to select an independent bipartisan commission to examine the Jan. 6 riot. Republicans in both legislative chambers balked. They refused to appoint the commission. So this is what we get: a select panel chosen by a Democratic House speaker.

Pelosi vetoed two of five GOP House members McCarthy selected: Jim Jordan and Jim Banks. McCarthy’s response then was to yank the three who made the cut from the committee.

So … Pelosi is now moving ahead. She has a bipartisan select committee getting ready to do its work.

The insurrection of Jan. 6 was an unprecedented event. The mob of terrorists sought to overturn the results of a legal, free and fair presidential election. The committee will want to get at the root of what caused the riot and presumably seek ways to prevent a recurrence.

Reps. Kinzinger and Cheney believe in the rule of law. They are faithful to their oath to protect the Constitution, unlike most of their GOP colleagues, who proclaim their fealty to the ex-Moron in Chief.

I am looking forward to watching this committee slog through its task to reach a conclusion based on the evidence it will receive.

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