Entering a dark era

May 7, 2021 kanelis2012 2 Comments

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

It pains me to think this, let alone say it out loud.

We have entered a dark, foreboding era where demagoguery and cultism are replacing serious policy discussion.

President Joseph R. Biden Jr. has replaced the most corrupt, inept, unfit, unqualified individual ever to hold the office of U.S. president. And yet the men and women who would follow Donald J. Trump to the gates of hell have, seemingly, done that very thing.

They are standing as obstructionists to a constructive agenda that President Biden seeks to craft for the nation. What’s even more frightening is that many of the Trumpsters are hiding behind the Big Lie that says the November 2020 election was pilfered from their guy. Thus, they demagogue themselves breathless, implying that Joe Biden isn’t a legitimate president.

Biden says he is willing to compromise with Republicans on the grand infrastructure package he has laid out there. It’s big, man. The GOP leadership in Congress has countered with a significantly smaller package. To be fair, it also represent a significant investment. Biden’s plan starts at $2.2 trillion; the GOP plan starts at $568 billion. President Biden says he is willing and ready to talk to Republicans about finding common ground.

Is the Republican congressional leadership listening to him? Not outwardly. They contend that Biden’s plan is a non-starter. They won’t raise taxes on rich people who saw their tax burden lightened in the 2017 GOP-led tax bill that Trump signed into law.

You want demagoguery? How about the nonsense the GOP keeps spouting about Biden’s “open border policy”? The border isn’t open. We are rounding up undocumented immigrants every hour of every day. Our immigration cops are holding them, trying to process them through a broken immigration system … that Joe Biden inherited.

From my perch out here the loyal opposition doesn’t look all that loyal in that it seems reluctant to negotiate in good faith with a president who seeks to employ those legendary legislative skills built over a professional lifetime in public service.

This is a dark time, folks. So help me I thought I saw flashes of light the day the nation turned Donald Trump out of office.

It must have been an oncoming freight train.

Am I giving up on the new president? Nope. Won’t happen. I intend to keep pushing, pitching and promoting a constructive agenda whenever the moment suits me.

At this moment, it suits me just fine.

national news

GOP gone into the tank

May 6, 2021 kanelis2012

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

The congressional Republican caucus has gone straight into the tank. Consider a couple of notable examples.

One GOP House member, Matt Gaetz of Florida, has been accused of having sex with a girl and of taking part in an alleged sex trafficking ring. Where is the House GOP leadership on that matter? Silent, man. Nothing but crickets.

Another GOP House member, Liz Cheney of Wyoming, voted to impeach Donald Trump in January of this year after he incited the insurrection against the U.S. government. She has continued to criticize Trump. House leaders’ response to Cheney? They want to boot her out of the House GOP leadership.

Let’s see. Gaetz remains a loyal Trumpkin; Cheney stands for the Constitution. Gaetz gets a pass because he hangs with The Donald; Cheney faces punishment because she adheres to her sacred oath of office.

Fealty to Donald Trump, therefore, has become the Republican litmus test.

Astonishing.

national news

Cheney fights back

May 6, 2021 kanelis2012

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney does not lack political moxie. Nor does she lack the courage to fight back against the loons within her Republican Party who continue to foment The Big Lie that poured first out of Donald Trump’s mouth.

Cheney faces the prospect of losing her leadership post within the GOP caucus in the House of Representatives. Why? Because she isn’t backing down in her criticism of Trump’s Big Lie about the 2020 presidential election being “stolen” from him.

She said this on Twitter: The 2020 presidential election was not stolen. Anyone who claims it was is spreading THE BIG LIE, turning their back on the rule of law, and poisoning our democratic system.

The “anyone” to whom she refers would be the ex-POTUS himself.

I am going to stand with Rep. Cheney on this one, even though she represents — in most instances — the far right wing of a party in the midst of a civil war.

Cheney is on the right side of history. The Trumpkins who want her removed from her leadership post are flirting with disaster.

business news

Time of My Life, Part 58: It goes with territory

May 6, 2021 kanelis2012

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

My morning started at the Sam Rayburn VA Medical Center in Bonham, Texas, where I went for a routine exam.

During the course of the examination, the radiology technician and I engaged in some light-hearted banter that wove its way eventually toward some of the complaints she gets from veterans such as me.

“If I say something that someone doesn’t like, they go to” speak to the personnel office, she said. “Then I hear from her” and have to explain, she added.

No one tells the personnel office about all “thousands of good things that go on here,” she said.

I laughed. Loudly, in fact. It reminded me of an aspect of my career that I shared with the radiology technician. I will share it with you.

I told her that “when I was a working guy, I wrote editorials for newspapers.” One of the aspects of the job was getting feedback from readers. It could be positive. It could be negative. I told her that “I lost count many years ago of the time someone would say, ‘Hey, I really liked that editorial you wrote.’ I would ask him or her ‘Which one?’ They couldn’t remember, but only told me they liked it,” I explained. Did it frustrate me? Of course it did! I wanted to know the particulars of what pleased this individual; I didn’t tell her that part.

Then I told her, “If they disagreed with an editorial I wrote or a position I laid out, why they were able to recite it back to me … word for word.”

Such is the nature of that line of work and so it is with what my new friend at the Rayburn VA Center has chosen to do.

I ended up telling her, “I hope you know it just goes with the territory.”

She understands.

crime news, local news, State news

Get ready for more guns, Texas

May 6, 2021 kanelis2012

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

The organization once known as the “law and order party” is about to give Texas residents some serious pause about its commitment to the issue of, um … law and order.

On the strength of all 18 Republican Texas senators and a GOP majority of Texas House members, the Legislature is about to approve a new bill that allows Texans to pack heat wherever and whenever they want — without acquiring a mandated state-issued permit to do so.

Do you feel safer now? Hah! Me neither.

I hasten to add that this legislation is being pushed to Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk over the strenuous objections of big-, middle- and small-city chiefs of police all over the state. Many of them, such as Dallas Police Chief Eddie Garcia, worry about a dramatic increase in armed suspects being stopped for various violations and the risk their officers face as a result.

Now it’s a matter of giving everyone who wants to carry a gun permission to do so. Yes, they have written some restrictions into it, such as disqualifying someone with a recent felony conviction.

Still, the notion that this bill takes down so-called “arbitrary restrictions” to the Second Amendment to our Constitution is foolish. Thus, that’s why it is being called “constitutional carry” legislation.

I had expressed some hope that the Senate would resist approving this nutty notion. My hope rested on my friend state Sen. Kel Seliger, an Amarillo Republican, who resisted it saying that the concealed carry permit restrictions were sufficient and that they did not infringe on the Second Amendment’s guarantee of firearm ownership.

I guess Seliger caved. That disappoints me.

As for the Republican legislative majority, I will presume that they all have said at least once during their political career how they support our law enforcement community. Hell, so do I!

If so, then why are they pushing back against the resistance of state’s cops?

Ridiculous.

national news

Keep speaking, Rep. Cheney

May 6, 2021 kanelis2012

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

It occurs to me that congressional Republicans might not be doing themselves any favors if they oust Rep. Liz Cheney from her GOP caucus leadership post.

Cheney, who’s become a target of Donald Trump cultists within the GOP caucus, well might be relieved of her No. 3 position on the party leadership ladder.

She intends to keep speaking out about how the party has been hijacked, kidnapped and perverted by the cultists who adhere to the ex-POTUS’s nonsense, namely the Big Lie about the 2020 presidential election.

Think of it. Rep. Cheney might now be free to speak her mind without additional fear of retribution.

Cheney wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post. She said this: “Trump is seeking to unravel critical elements of our constitutional structure that make democracy work — confidence in the result of elections and the rule of law. No other American president has ever done this,” Cheney wrote.

Cheney hits ‘Trump cult of personality,’ says she’ll keep speaking out | TheHill

Keep talking, Rep. Cheney.

local news

Recount? Really?

May 6, 2021 kanelis2012

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Is this the new modus operandi for candidates who lose contests for public office?

They get fewer votes than the winner and then yap and yammer about alleged “irregularities” in the counting of the ballots. So it is happening now in the just completed race for mayor of Amarillo, Texas.

Mayor Ginger Nelson was re-elected with 54 percent of the vote. Her closest challenger was someone named Claudette Smith (about whom I know nothing), who finished with 29 percent of the total vote. Let’s see, that’s a 25-percentage point difference between first and second.

And yet, Smith wants a recount. She said this, according to the Amarillo Globe-News: “Since Election Day, I have been inundated with inquiries regarding the outcome and integrity of the election. At the request of a very large number of citizens, I filed a petition for a recount,” Smith said in a statement given to the Globe-News on Tuesday after the Globe-News’ print deadline. “Another candidate on the ballot (in a different race) has requested a recount as well. Many citizens have expressed that the incumbent in my race barely missed a runoff by 4%, which equates to around 800 votes. Additionally, there are a number of questionable incidents that occurred during the election that are being looked at. As a candidate, I pay for the cost of the recount. It does not cost the taxpayers anything. I have agreed to pay these costs. If it was a fair and honest election, I don’t see any reason anyone should object to a recount. It’s what the people want and so that’s what I’ve decided to do.”

Update: Smith comments on recount request submitted for Amarillo mayor race (msn.com)

Ah, ha! There it is! She says Nelson fell just 800 votes of being forced into a runoff. Therefore, Smith said, she needs to recount the tally. Good grief.

The only redeeming quality of this farce is that Smith is going to foot the bill for a recount.

Still, I believe it will prove to be a monumental waste of time. Oh, and Smith had better not claim any sort of “election theft.”

national news

GOP set to make hideous choice

May 6, 2021 kanelis2012

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Has it really come down to this?

The Republican congressional caucus might be on the verge of purging its leadership of a true-blue conservative lawmaker with impeccable party credentials.

Why? Because she voted to impeach a president who incited a deadly riot on Jan. 6 and because she stands on certain principles that all patriotic Americans ought to follow: that no one is above the law.

Rep. Liz Cheney, the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney and No. 3 in the GOP caucus leadership pecking order, might be voted out of her post because she believes that Donald Trump’s fomenting of the Big Lie about the 2020 election presents a danger to our democratic system of government.

And for that the GOP might send her to the back bench?

That is unbelievable, except that is what has become of a once-great political party.

The GOP has become a cult of personality beholden to someone who had no business being elected president of the United States in the first place. When he was elected in 2016, Donald Trump began the systematic dismantling of every political norm he could grab.

Along the way, he formed the astonishing cult of believers who adhere only to the whims and machinations of one man at the expense of good governance.

That individual has refused to this day to accept the fact that he lost an election and has taken the cult following to dangerous levels of blind fealty. It is a sight to behold.

I am not a fan of Rep. Cheney. Except for this notion: She is standing for a principle that I used to think transcended the partisan political divide. The principle is the rule of law.

Donald Trump incited an insurrection. The House of Reps impeached a second time for it. Cheney was one of 10 Republican House members to join their Democratic colleagues in holding Trump accountable for his incitement.

For that she is being punished? Because she stands for the belief that our Constitution and our democratic system of government — which she swore to protect — are more important than the political standing of one man?

Scary, man!

media news, national news

No First Amendment problem

May 5, 2021 kanelis2012

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

A word to the right-wing wackos who are going bonkers over Facebook’s decision to keep Donald Trump off the social medium … for now: settle down and take a deep breath!

The Trump cultists in Congress are bitching about so-called First Amendment infringements because Facebook, a privately held media company, has decided it cannot allow someone to use its platform to call for an insurrection against the U.S. government.

That is what Trump did on Jan. 6. So it banned the former president. It decided to make a firm decision later on the extent of Trump’s banishment.

As for Trump’s First Amendment free speech guarantee, it is still there. Trump can yap, yammer and yeowl all he wants about the 2020 election being “stolen.” Of course that is just so much bullsh**. Trump knows it. I certainly do. So do you as well.

The First Amendment allows Trump to spew such nonsense. It doesn’t prohibit a private firm from exercising its own policy-making ability on who gets to speak out and who faces the muzzle.

So, right-wing blowards? You need to pipe down.

High Plains Blogger

Entering a dark era

GOP gone into the tank

Cheney fights back

Time of My Life, Part 58: It goes with territory

Get ready for more guns, Texas

Keep speaking, Rep. Cheney

Recount? Really?

GOP set to make hideous choice

No First Amendment problem

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