McKinney airport to expand … but, why?

December 20, 2024 kanelis2012

Perhaps there’s something that has sailed over my pointy head, but I’ll ask anyway: What is it that prevents McKinney Mayor George Fuller from accepting “no” from voters about expanding McKinney National Airport?

Fuller says he intends to spend budgeted money to expand the airport and introduce commercial air travel to the facility by 2026. He says this despite voters in his city twice refusing bond issues that called for the airport expansion.

I must stipulate I do not live in McKinney. My home in Princeton is about six miles east of the airport and, yes, I do drive past the airport frequently as I scurry about on local errands. I also must stipulate that I do not necessarily oppose expanding the airport and I would welcome commercial air travel from a nearby terminal rather than driving all the way to D/FW International Airport or Love Field.

But the issue isn’t mine to decide.

According to the Princeton Herald: “Fuller said the city would use $60 million in bonds secured by airport sales tax revenue to fund construction of a 45,000-square foot passenger terminal and a parking lot for about 1,500 vehicles. The project manager said the size would vary according to tenant needs.”

Voters scuttled a $200 bond issue in May 2023 and rejected a smaller proposal in 2015.

I recall the 2023 campaign and opponents were clear that they didn’t want to see an increase in traffic in their city.

Does the new idea pitched by Fuller mean a return to those concerns? I don’t know. I do believe, though, that the mayor might be prompting some backlash from voters if they continue to resist calls for an expansion that could bring those concerns back into play.

If voters say “no,” that should stand as their decision.

national news

Forget about bipartisanship!

December 19, 2024 kanelis2012 2 Comments

Donald Trump has made abundantly clear what he intends as he prepares to take the executive reins of the federal government.

Any effort to include Democrats in solving the issues of the day will be met with stubborn refusal to accept the other side’s help.

Trump and his rich-guy sidekick Elon Musk have just derailed a bipartisan spending plan that members of Congress had negotiated to keep the government from shutting down.

No can do, said Trump and Musk, declaring the spending proposal contains too much “fat” to suit the president-elect and his economic team led by Musk.

The deal is now dead. House Speaker Mike Johnson and his colleagues vow to keep working to keep the government open. They won’t get any help from the president-elect and team of obstructionists.

Trump campaigned this year on a promise to be “president for all Americans.” I took that to mean a pledge to work with members of Congress who represent Americans who did not support Trump and his MAGA cult of followers.

Silly me. I forgot we were dealing with an individual who is a total stranger to the truth.

The disruption a government shutdown would bring cannot be measured. It doesn’t matter a damn bit to Elon Musk, to Donald Trump or to the rest of the MAGA cult who see their public service as being built on making lives miserable.

national news

Trump, Congress: miles apart

December 19, 2024 kanelis2012

Never in my wildest imagination, not ever, could I have thought that an incoming president would be so far removed from the Congress with whom he is supposed to govern as Donald J. Trump and the legislative body that takes office in less than a month.

Consider all the venom that has been spewed — by Democrats as well as from the Republican president — in the campaign that brought us a second Donald Trump term in the White House.

How do they get past the hatred? How do they set aside the anger expressed outwardly toward the other side?

Trump, quite naturally, has decided to ratchet the hatred up beyond all reason by saying that every individual who served on the Jan. 6 House committee should be tossed into jail. The criminal charge? He has none. They should be jailed, Trump said, merely because they opposed the way he flouted the Constitution by instigating the mob assault on the government on Jan. 6, 2021.

Oh, he fabricated a lie about the committee destroying evidence. Baloney! The committee did nothing of the sort.

It is that backdrop against which Trump will take office on Jan. 20. Congress will be seated earlier in the month. Presumably the House will choose its speaker, although that once again seems dicey, given the GOP’s paper-thin majority that might shrink to zero before Congress takes its seat.

All campaigns produce winners and losers. It used to be that losers would dust themselves off, reflect a bit on what went wrong, then got back to the work of governing. Democrats are still in shock over losing to a man so deeply flawed. Trump, meanwhile, is embarking on the revenge he promised he would seek.

Good government is gone. I am going to hope for its eventual return.

national news

New morality defined

December 18, 2024 kanelis2012 1 Comment

Republicans have redefined morality, creating a version of the term many of their elders wouldn’t recognize.

The Grand Old Party that once campaigned for public office on a “character matters” platform and once went after a Democratic president hammer and tong because he messed around with women other than his wife now stands foursquare behind a president that has done far, far worse.

And no one seems to care.

Donald Trump has been called a man who builds his relationships on a “transactional” basis, in that he always is looking for something in return for his “friendship.” Let’s say his followers believe in a “transactional morality,” meaning that it doesn’t matter that the man is a slug as long as he adheres to public policy to their liking.

We have elected twice an individual who has denigrated a legitimate Vietnam War hero, mocked a handicapped New York Times reporter, admitted to serial philandering on all of his wives, acknowledged he has sexually assaulted women by grabbing them by their private areas, admitted he never has sought God’s forgiveness, been impeached twice for high crimes and misdemeanors, convicted by a jury on 34 felony counts, been found liable for the rape of a woman … and on and on it goes.

What’s the problem, the MAGA cultists ask. He selects judges who will toss aside a woman’s right to control her body, he does nothing to stem gun violence and vows to be “your retribution.”

Yes, we have entered a new era of morality in which we no longer judge a candidate on his behavior but only on whether he is a good fit politically.

This is a sad time for our still-great country.

crime news

Another shooting, another yawn from those in power

December 17, 2024 kanelis2012

I am acutely aware that the words from this brief blog post will go unnoticed by those who prowl the halls of power in Austin and Washington.

I’ll offer them anyway.

Another school shooting has claimed the lives of young people who attended class never thinking today would be their final day on this Earth. The shooter, also a juvenile, then turned the gun on himself, according to authorities in Madison, Wis., where the tragedy occurred.

It happened at a Christian school in Wisconsin’s capital city.

At last report, two people — a student and a teacher — died in the gunfire, six were injured.

OK, so what is the question we need to address? I suppose one should be how the young shooter obtained the weapon that I suppose was purchased legally. Did he get it from Mom and Dad’s dresser from an unsecured place? Did the parents do enough to keep the firearm out of the kid’s hands?

Well, too many questions remain to be asked and to be answered.

My concern about those in power deal with their reluctance to even debate these issues openly. Texas has two U.S. senators, John Cornyn and Ted Cruz, who blithely dismiss any legislative remedies to strength anti-gun legislation. North Texas U.S. Rep. Keith Self of McKinney is cast in the same hands-off mold as Cornyn and Cruz.

These men are Republicans, and they follow the mantra muttered by Donald Trump, who actually bragged during the 2024 presidential campaign that he was “proud” to do nothing to stem gun violence in the wake of another recent shooting.

And so, our alleged “leaders” likely will offer their “thoughts and prayers” for the loved ones of those who died or who are recovering from their wounds.

And then nothing will happen.

Shameful.

political news

No, Steve, he can’t run again

December 16, 2024 kanelis2012

Steve Bannon, Donald Trump’s go-to firebreather, now says the future president can seek a third term in 2028.

Hmm. Well, let’s see what the U.S. Constitution says about that. I looked up the 22nd Amendment in my handy-dandy pocket edition of the nation’s government document. It says, in part:

“No person shall be elected to the office of President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two hears of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once.”

Bannon’s reason for Trump standing for election in 2028 is that his two terms are non-consecutive. Therefore, the former federal prisoner says, Trump is eligible to seek a third term.

I did not see any reference to consecutive terms or non-consecutive terms in the Constitution’s 22nd Amendment.

Trump has won the office twice. After this term is finished, he’s done. Gone. Finished. And not a moment too soon.

local news

Blog takes brief turn

December 16, 2024 kanelis2012

This blog took form as a political venue for me to vent and for others to respond to my spewage. I haven’t let up much over the many years I’ve been writing it.

For the next few days, during the holiday season, I am going to dial back by venom on High Plains Blogger just a tad in honor of Christmas, Hannukah and whatever else we want to celebrate.

You know my feelings already about the just-concluded election. It didn’t turn out the way I had hoped. I am going to spare you the intense reaction I am feeling in my gut about the decisions the POTUS-elect is making. I will seek to be civil for the time being.

I also will concentrate more on other subjects of interest during this time of year. We had a municipal election in Princeton this past week, with the mayor losing in a runoff against a challenger. I’ll have some things to say about that.

Other stuff crops up, too.

So, with that I’ll let y’all enjoy your day. I will enjoy mine.

If I were doing any better right now … I’d be twins.

business news, local news

Keeping faith with pledge

December 16, 2024 kanelis2012

A pledge I made some years ago is holding up nicely during this holiday season.

My pledge to the world — and to myself, mostly — was to avoid stressing out during this time of the year. I am happy to report that the holiday season will come and go without adding a single stress wrinkle to my aging puss.

I used to complain about how the intense commercialism of Christmas was the true enemy of the holiday. It wasn’t the so-called “liberal media,” or those who seek to remove the religious symbolism of the holiday.

It’s Madison Avenue and those who seek to make a buck on people’s desire to find the perfect gift for a loved one, or those who have to prepare the perfect holiday meal to consume after tearing up the package containing the perfect gift.

My gift-giving is limited mainly to my granddaughter. She is 11. She has her favorite activities. She tells me what they are. I act accordingly. My adult children have what they need and so I limit gift-giving for them significantly. My house is decorated, although I admit to scaling that back, too, since my bride is no longer here to whirl through the place like the Tasmanian Devil ensuring every decoration is shown properly.

So … my guilt and stress-free Christmas pledge is intact.

Ho, ho, ho ….

local news

Suffering kitty withdrawal

December 15, 2024 kanelis2012

So help me I didn’t see this coming … not ever in a zillion years.

My first full day back to having my Princeton, Texas, dwelling more or less all to myself has been, shall we say, a challenge. Why? Well, because Sabol the Puppy and I are without our two feline friends, Marlowe and Macy.

They have joined their daddy, my son, who this week moved into his new home about six miles south of us in rural Princeton. My son moved in with me in the spring of 2023 after his mother passed away from a savage form of brain cancer. He brought his cats with him.

I gotta tell ya, Marlow and Macy bonded very nicely with their grandpa … aka me. Marlowe and I have grown particularly close. He slept at the end of my bed with me damn near every night. I would move during the night, perhaps disturb him, and he would walk ever-so-softly toward my face, nuzzle me and purr in my ear. This would last a few minutes, then he would return to his spot at my feet and go back to sleep.

Yes, I miss my son. I was glad he came. I have told him he saved my life, sparing me from much of the grief he, his brother, sister-in-law and his niece were all suffering with Kathy Anne’s sudden illness and departure. We powered through it together.

I say that, but damn, I miss the kitties in a way I didn’t expect.

It’s going to take time. I am used to telling both Marlowe and Macy that I love them. I also am going to my grave believing they know what I was telling them.

When they were hungry, they would let me know. First thing in the morning, they were at my door yelling at me, “Hey, we’re hungry, grandpa!”

I say all this knowing that I am not totally alone. I have Sabol. She is a scream! I leave the house for 45 seconds, return and she acts like I’ve been gone for a week. She has a limitless supply of affectionate licks and she doles them out with extreme enthusiasm.

President Truman once said about life in Washington, “If you want a friend, get a dog.” Sabol is my friend for life.

Still, the house just isn’t quite the same.

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