DC riot, media news

Facebook makes right call

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

This won’t surprise anyone in the least, but I happen to believe Facebook’s oversight board made the right call in keeping Donald Trump away from the social medium.

The board made its decision known this morning, citing Trump’s incitement of the insurrection on The Sixth of January, the one that sought to overturn the results of a free and fair election that chose Joe Biden to be president and threw Trump out of office.

Trump used Facebook as a method of stirring up the rioters who stormed the Capitol Building, killing four individuals — including a police officer — threatened to “Hang Mike Pence!” and sought to hunt down other elected officials.

It was an insurrection against the government and it sought to destroy the democratic process.

The decision carries some stipulations, according to the New York Times, which reported: But the board also said that Facebook’s penalty of an indefinite suspension was “not appropriate,” and that the company should apply a “defined penalty.” The board gave Facebook six months to make its final decision on Mr. Trump’s account status.

“Our sole job is to hold this extremely powerful organization, Facebook, to be held accountable,” Michael McConnell, co-chair of the Oversight Board, said on a call with reporters. The decision “did not meet these standards,” he said.

Facebook’s Ban of Trump Upheld by Oversight Board (msn.com)

I can hear the outcry building now. Conservatives are going to bitch about Facebook being too friendly to liberals, that the platform seeks to punish those who hold views that differ from their own. Baloney!

As I have followed this tempest, Facebook based its decision to ban Trump because the ex-POTUS keeps telling the Big Lie about the 2020 election being “stolen” from him and that his words had a demonstrable effect on the rioters who sought to pillage and plunder the seat of our federal government.

Is that really a partisan matter? No, it is not!

The overseers of Facebook have given the platform six months to decide on Trump’s status. Take all the time you need and have been given, Facebook. Donald John Trump is a menace, a disgrace and is the true “enemy of the people.”

DC riot, national news

GOP leader has ‘had it’ with Cheney?

(Photo by Marc Piscotty/Getty Images)

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I never thought the day would come that I would be standing behind a conservative Republican member of Congress.

But here I am, telling you that Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming is getting the bum’s rush from her party leaders simply because she — and not them — chose to honor the U.S. Constitution they all swore an oath to protect and defend.

Disgusting, despicable, disgraceful.

House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy of California says he has “had it” with Rep. Cheney, which means she could lose her job as the House’s No. 3 GOP leader. Why is that? Because she voted to impeach Donald Trump after the president of the United States incited the insurrection mounted by the terrorists who stormed Capitol Hill on Jan. 6.

So, because she believes that Trump committed an act against the government by inciting the rioters to do what they did.

Is she less of a Republican politician because she chose to honor the Constitution? Of course not! Yet the GOP leadership now demands fealty to a cult leader above all else.

McCarthy has done the impossible. He has turned this center-left American patriot into a fan of a right-leaning member of Congress.

I am proud of Liz Cheney for standing up for the Constitution.

DC riot, Donald Trump

No, Sen. Hawley, they had no ‘right’ to do what they did

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I will just speak from my gut.

Josh Hawley is a dangerous young man. The Republican U.S. senator from Missouri already had crafted his infamy by being among those senators to challenge the results of the 2020 presidential election, which chose Joe Biden as the next president of the United States.

Then he said this just today about the mob of terrorists who were gathering at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6: “They had every right to be there.” 

If their intent was to storm the Capitol, to interfere with Congress doing its constitutional duty to certify the results of the election, to injure police officers and kill one of them, to threaten bodily harm to the vice president and speaker of the House, to defecate on the floor of Congress … then they had no right to be there.

And yet the junior senator from Missouri continues to stand by that hideous raised-fist photo of him saluting the mob waiting to storm the place where our Congress writes laws to which we all must obey.

Why did the rioters do what they did? Because the man who was soon to leave the presidency, Donald J. Trump, exhorted them to “take back” the government from forces he alleged had “stolen” the election and given it to President Biden. He continues to foment The Big Lie and members of Congress — such as Sen. Hawley — cheer on the disgraced ex-president.

Josh Hawley now is widely believed to aspire to a presidential run in 2024. How does that make you feel? Warm and fuzzy? Do you want to place the nuclear codes in the hands of an insurrectionist? Do you trust this guy to “defend and protect” the very Constitution he sought to destroy by challenging the result of a free, fair and duly certified presidential election?

What’s more, he now is defending the terrorists who committed the single greatest assault on our government since, oh let’s see, the Civil War.

The danger that Sen. Josh Hawley presents to this country cannot be overstated.

medical news

Dr. Fauci’s voice has a certain … lilt

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Surely others have seen and heard what I have seen and heard from Dr. Anthony Fauci, the infectious disease guru who has become a household name since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

What would that be? It would be the lilt in his voice — and were he to stand and stroll down the street a certain spring in his step.

Dr. Fauci now serves as President Biden’s chief medical adviser. He had the same title (in name only) while working in the Donald Trump administration. The difference between then and now is simple and is as clear as it gets: Fauci is able to speak clearly and bluntly to Americans without being challenged by the president of the United States.

Fauci sought to do all of that while working in the Trump administration. He would tell us that mask-wearing saves lives only to be slammed to the mat by Trump, who at one point called Fauci “an idiot.”

These days? He says the same thing and gets an endorsement for his expertise and receives rhetorical backing from President Biden.

When I watch Dr. Fauci being interviewed by news talking heads I see a man who has been liberated from the heavy hand of a president who refused to let his experts speak for an administration led by a functionally ignorant chief executive.

Anthony Fauci has been set free. He is enjoying being able to speak with candor and with the authority he has built brick by brick over many decades studying diseases just like COVID-19.

State news

Listen to us, legislators!

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

What gives with our elected representation in Austin?

They are charting legislative courses that, according to public opinion surveys, go directly against the wishes of the people for whom they work. That us, folks! You and me! And perhaps even our neighbors and family members.

Here’s a case in point.

The Texas Legislature is moving toward enacting a law that allows Texans to pack heat on their hips — a pistol in the open — without having to undergo a simple course and exam to prove they know how to handle the shootin’ iron.

Legislators, led by the Republican majority, call it “constitutional carry.” So, what do rank-and-file Texans think of it? They are opposed to letting our neighbors pack heat into the grocery store, or to park, or the gasoline service station.

The latest poll from the Texas Tribune/University of Texas says that 59 percent of Texans oppose “constitutional carry” of firearms. According to the Tribune: A solid majority of Texas voters don’t think adults should be allowed to carry handguns in public places without permits or licenses, though the idea is popular with a 56% majority of Republicans. Overall, 59% oppose unlicensed carry — a number driven up by the 85% of Democrats who oppose it. On the Republican side, the gun questions revealed a gender gap. Among Republican men, 70% said they support unlicensed carry; 49% of Republican women oppose that position.

So, my question is this: Who in the hell are the 181 state senators and House members, plus Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick — who runs the Senate — listening to?

Texas voters on “constitutional carry,” abortion bans and more in UT/TT Poll | The Texas Tribune

If we are to believe the Tribune/UT poll, they ain’t listening to their bosses, those of us who have to live with the laws they approve.

Shameful. Just shameful.

State news

Texas Democrats fall short, however …

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

This needs to be said, so I’ll say it.

Texas Democrats keep telling us the state is about to “turn blue,” yet the state’s roster of elected statewide officials remains Republican. However, I do believe in the theory being kicked around that the Lone Star State’s population is shifting inexorably toward a more competitive political environment.

Let’s consider two key election cycles: 2018 and 2020.

The mid-term election of 2018 produced a near upset of astonishing proportions. Democrat Beto O’Rourke came within a slice of brisket of knocking off Republican U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz three years ago. He lost by, oh, just this much. O’Rourke got Democrats’ hearts to flutter.

Then came the 2020 presidential election. Donald Trump carried the state over Joe Biden and won its 38 Electoral College votes. But … Trump’s victory margin was less than half of what he earned against Hillary Clinton in 2016 and less than a third the size of the victory Mitt Romney posted against President Obama in 2012.

What does any of this portend? It might be a precursor to Democrats scoring the major electoral breakthrough for which they have been lusting.

Or … it might not.

I am going to go with the former theory.

Population trends do tend to take on lives of their own. Texas’s shift from solidly Democratic to solidly Republican has been followed by another — more nuanced — change. We are becoming a majority-minority state, meaning that ethnic minorities will comprise a majority of the state’s overall population.

I want the state to become competitive. I dislike having one party standing like a colossus over the landscape, especially when that party — the Republican Party — is dominated by assorted fruitcakes, wackos and nut jobs.

environmental news

Lightning, thunder = excitement

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Bear with me as I write briefly about the weather.

My wife and I long have had a fascination with explosive weather. We got a first-hand look at just how explosive it can get when in 1984 we moved from the Pacific Northwest to the Texas Gulf Coast.

Beaumont proved to be a place where the lightning was extremely bright, was spectacular in its displays. The thunder it produced was noisy beyond belief.

And, oh yes, the rain comes in torrents, unlike in Oregon where it rains for three days before you even notice it.

Then we moved in 1995 to the Panhandle of Texas, the Caprock, along the Llano Estacado. They boast there about the lightning and thunder. To be honest, in our experience it didn’t measure up to what we saw and heard on the Gulf Coast.

We did experience a couple of baseball-size hail events that wrecked the roof of the house we built in Amarillo in late 1996. So, yes, we had our share of excitement.

Now we have settled in what they call North Texas, in Collin County, just NE of Dallas. It is storming as I write these few words. The intensity of the lighting and the accompanying thunder is beginning to remind us of our time in Beaumont.

It gives me a strangely pleasant diversion from the other things that usually occupy my time at the keyboard writing on this blog.

So my attention has been yanked away from the weirdness of the national and international news. I am fixated at the moment on Mother Nature’s sound and fury.

It will pass. Then I can think about the other matters that occupy my mind these days. Until then, I am going to stand in awe at the limitless power of our planet.

national news, political news

Trump has tight hold on GOP … but he won’t run in ’24

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

It is time to try to dispel any notion that Donald J. Trump is going to run for president of the United States in 2024.

I just cannot in any way, shape or imagined form see how the former president makes a credible case for his nomination by the Republican Party to run for POTUS.

Why not? Let’s see.

He is facing possible criminal indictments in two jurisdictions: Manhattan, N.Y., and Fulton County, Ga. One of them involves possible campaign finance and tax fraud; the other involves possible coercion and bullying of an elected official.

Trump has a huge debt coming due, on the order of $400 million.

He continues to spew the Big Lie about alleged “theft” of the 2020 election.

Trump lost re-election in 2020 because voters across the board had gotten sickened by his incessant lying, his insults, his bullying, the chaos and confusion and his complete and unabashed incompetence when it came to governance.

How does a former president parlay any of that into something positive? How does he sell himself to an electorate that already has been exposed to this idiot’s self-aggrandizement.

Spare me the idiocy that he “controls” a huge portion of the GOP electorate. I will place my bet that the Trump “base” is going to shrink particularly if indictments are brought.

Oh, and then we’ll see what happens if former NYC mayor Rudy Giuliani squeals on Trump if federal prosecutors from the Southern District of New York hang a federal indictment on him.

Nope, the stars aren’t aligning well for Trump to make another run for the presidency. Which is more than just fine with me.

This guy just needs to get the hell out of our sight.

local news

Trumpism boiled down

1 Comment

By John Kanelis / johnkanelils_92@hotmail.com

It occurs to me as I read my Twitter feed that the voters in the congressional district where I once lived are being exposed to a boiled-down version of Trumpism from their elected House of Representatives member.

Rep. Ronny Jackson is a Republican — duh!— who now lives in Amarillo. He didn’t live anywhere near the Texas Panhandle before deciding to run for the 13th Congressional District seat being vacated by fellow Republican Mac Thornberry. He moved to the region. He got elected in November.

Ever since taking office, Rep. Jackson has been doing something that Thornberry rarely did. He fires off Twitter taunts constantly.

He has suggested that President Biden is destroying the country. That Biden is leading us toward a “communist” state. That the border crisis is all on Biden. That Democrats are trying to take away people’s right to own firearms.

Do you get where I am going with this? Republican congressmen and women all across the land who adhere to Donald J. Trump’s view of how the world should be have taken to this social medium.

That’s Jackson. All the way, man.

He isn’t sending Twitter messages out about how to improve farm policy. Or about how to protect Lake Meredith National Recreation Area. Or how to preserve Alibates Flint Quarry National Monument — the only national monument in Texas! Hell, he isn’t even tweeting about whether Interstates 40 and 27 should be shored up in a national infrastructure bill.

Oh, no. This clown has hopped onto the Donald Trump clown car parade and is spewing the same brand of demagogic nonsense that flows from Trump’s pie hole.

I am going to presume that most of his constituents are OK with it. They just adore Donald Trump and might want him to run again for POTUS. Their congressman is parroting his hero, too.

You want to know what has happened to the Republican Party? Look no further than the 13th Congressional District of Texas.

It is so very disgusting.

State news

Legislator earns high praise

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Dan Huberty should take a bow and accept this small expression of support for a courageous act he took today on the floor of the Texas House of Representatives.

The Houston Republican acknowledged to his colleagues that he is an alcoholic.

“My name is Dan and I am an alcoholic,” he told fellow legislators in an emotional speech in Austin.

Texas state Rep. Dan Huberty apologizes to House after DWI arrest | The Texas Tribune

Huberty was charged with drunken driving on April 23 after he crashed his car into a minivan and failed a sobriety test. The incident occurred just outside of Austin. He told his colleagues today he has been struggling with alcoholism his entire adult life.

He apologized to them and to his family and acknowledged that he has completed three of the Alcoholics Anonymous’ 12-step program toward sobriety.

Huberty’s colleagues responded with a standing ovation.

It was richly deserved.

“Alcoholism is a serious disease,” Huberty said. “One that is becoming a pandemic in itself.” Yes. It most certainly has become a pandemic.

It’s not often that we see politicians lay open their emotional wounds in such a candid manner. Rep. Huberty isn’t my representative, but I want to applaud him for showing the courage it takes to find his way out of the darkness.

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