State news

Secession? Are they serious?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

It’s close being declared official, that the Texas Republican Party has lost what passes for its mind. Hey, maybe it already is an official declaration!

Get a load of this: the Texas GOP has signed on to a proposal to allow Texans to vote on whether the state should secede from the Union and form an independent nation.

The Guardian reports: In a talk show interview, the party chair, Allen West, argued that: “Texans have a right to voice their opinions on [this] critical issue.

“I don’t understand why anyone would feel that they need to prevent people from having a voice in something that is part of the Texas constitution,” the former Florida congressman said of the Texas Referendum Independence Act. “You cannot prevent the people from having a voice.”

Texas Republicans endorse legislation to allow vote on secession from US | Texas | The Guardian

Allen West is out of his mind. He has gone around the bend. His butter has slipped off his noodle.

What are we to expect from a one-term Florida congressman who moved to Texas specifically to hijack the state GOP. Oh, I should also mention that he resigned from the Army after being accused of mistreating Iraqi prisoners of war during the Iraq War.

Now he is lending his voice to the craziest notion since, oh, the last time Texas seceded from the U.S. of A., in 1861, when it joined the Confederate States of America, which then lost the Civil War, the bloodiest armed conflict in our nation’s history!

This secession issue has been around ever since. It keeps cropping up during Texas legislative sessions. Kinda like the way fire ant mounds pop up after a spring thunderstorm.

The Texas Tribune reported in January that secession is illegal.

Texas can’t secede from the U.S. Here’s why. | The Texas Tribune

You don’t have to take my word for it; a lot of brainiacs have said that any notion that Texas can secede is the stuff of lunatics.

When in the name of political sanity is the Texas Republican Party going to pull its head out of its a**? Ever?

military news

Blowhard treads where he shouldn’t go

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Tucker Carlson is a right-wing gasbag who quite often bloviates on matters of which he knows nothing.

I’m a bit late entering this kerfuffle, but Carlson has waded into a thicket that has drawn deserved scorn from military veterans.

The Fox News blowhard had the stones to say the other day that women who serve in the military downgrade the quality of the nation’s fighting force. He had the very bad taste to suggest that pregnant women in particular are a detriment to this nation’s readiness.

Whoa! Dude, you stepped in it.

You see, Carlson never has served a single nanosecond in the nation’s military. Thus, he has no actual knowledge of the military culture, let alone the value that all our men and women bring to the defense of the nation.

Career military officers and non-commissioned officers alike have slammed Carlson for his remarks. I want to join them in that rebuke.

I need to stipulate that I served at a time — from 1968 to 1970 — before women became integrated fully into all the military occupational specialties that the Army offers. However, I do retain some familiarity with the culture that drives the military. I have no doubt as to the readiness of our nation’s armed forces, which are the most formidable on Planet Earth; and, yes, the women who serve contribute to our nation’s readiness.

And I speak with personal knowledge that a dear member of my family, a woman who served with valor and honor in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan, is every bit as capable as any man with whom she served in the United States Army.

Tucker Carlson would do well to examine his own qualifications before he pontificates on matters with which he has no experience.

national news

Cuomo’s time has come?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

It is beginning to look to me as though Andrew Cuomo’s tenure as New York governor might be about to pass into history.

The Democratic politician is getting plenty of pressure to resign and it is coming from senior members of the state’s congressional delegation. He stands accused of sexual harassment by at least seven women, not to mention the scandal that erupted before this stuff arrived about the undercounting of COVID deaths among nursing home residents.

President Nixon faced similar pressure in August 1974 when the Watergate scandal was about to produce a certain impeachment. Senior congressional Republicans went to the White House to inform Nixon that his tenure as president was toast, that he had no support in Congress. Nixon quit.

Impeachment looms just ahead for Cuomo.

It looks as though there might be something similar is building in  the New York statehouse.

crime news

Will they still follow ‘our president’?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Let’s see how this plays out.

Many of the rioters/terrorists on Jan. 6 looked into TV cameras and said they merely were doing what “our president” wanted them to do, which was to storm Capitol Hill, threaten to kill the vice president and commit an act of insurrection against the U.S. government.

So, will those individuals now commit to doing what “our president” asks us to do by wearing masks, practice social distancing and follow infectious disease experts’ guidelines and recommendations so we can kill the coronavirus?

Or are they interested only in destroying the nation rather than trying to protect it?

Hey, I’m just askin’ … for a friend.

national news

Thank you, Mr. POTUS, for the empathy

(AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Mr. President, I am not going to flood your Twitter account with messages like this one, but I do feel the need to send you a direct message of thanks.

I occasionally would type out these missives to your predecessor. He got them, or his staff got them, and likely ignored them. Just tossed ’em in the cyber-trash can.

I heard your speech the other night from the White House and I just want to express my thanks and appreciation for the return of empathy and compassion in our head of state. We’ve all been missing that in the presidency for the past four years, as you no doubt are aware. Indeed, I heard your allusion to the absence of it in your remarks.

We need to hear these kinds of remarks from our president. You know how it goes. You served with a president, Barack Obama, who became a master of comforting a nation in pain. His predecessor, George W. Bush, managed to rally us after that terrible day on 9/11. President Bill Clinton, too, was good at trying to heal a nation grieving over tragic loss. But you know all of that, yes?

The pain we feel today is real and it is lingering. The pandemic is still with us, as you know. Yet you offered some realistic words of optimism, not the shallow happy talk based on nothing but a presidential “hunch” that we got from your immediate predecessor.

I’ll end this note now. Thanks once again for talking to us in a tone of voice that tells me that you actually do care about the people you were elected to lead … and to comfort.

national news

Time to go, Gov. Cuomo

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Andrew Cuomo has been a national political figure since before he took office as New York governor.

He comes from a renowned New York political family, being the son of a former governor and he once served as U.S. housing secretary in the Clinton administration.

It is with that context being laid out there that a blogger from faraway Texas — that would be me — has an interest in the political calamity that has befallen this guy.

He’s got to resign from office and find a way to rehabilitate himself.

I hate using the word “distraction,” but this fellow’s gubernatorial performance is being distracted to the point of irrelevance. He cannot propose anything for his state that isn’t measured against the allegations that have been leveled by seven women who have accused him of sexual harassment and actual sexual assault.

It’s over, Gov. Cuomo. He had his moment in the sun with his stunning media performance chronicling his state’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. He was being held up as the gold standard for governmental candor compared to what we were getting throughout 2020 from the president of the United States.

Then the crap hit the fan on that matter, too! Reports surfaced about Cuomo undercounting the number of infections and deaths at nursing homes in New York. Bad call, dude.

Now come the seemingly credible accusations of sexual misconduct by women who formerly worked in the Cuomo administration. Democrats have joined Republicans in calling for Cuomo to resign. The New York House of Representatives has launched an impeachment inquiry that, it now appears likely, will result in articles of impeachment being filed against Cuomo.

It’s time for Andrew Cuomo to exit the political stage he has commanded for decades.

national news

Where was No. 45?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Just a few moments this evening before President Biden began speaking to the nation about the fight against the COVID pandemic, I watched a brief public service announcement.

It featured four of the five living former presidents of the United States urging Americans to get vaccinated against the virus. There they were: Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, George W. (and Laura) Bush and Jimmy (and Rosalyn) Carter. They told us of their dedication to protect themselves and urged us to protect ourselves and those with whom we come in contact.

But …

Where in the world was Donald J. Trump? He doesn’t belong — or so it appears — to the exclusive Former Presidents Club.

The pandemic took the nation by the throat on Trump’s watch. And yet he was the president who downplayed its impact, he lied to us repeatedly about its seriousness, he mused aloud about injecting ourselves with cleaning agents to rid us of the virus. In short, he fluffed the nation’s response to a virus that has killed more than 500,000 Americans. Now we learn that he and the former first lady got vaccinated in private before leaving the White House; they never bothered to set the kind of example they should have set.

Now that I think more deeply about it, hearing Donald Trump talk to us about getting vaccinated would have been as insincere and inauthentic as every single thing that has flowed from his mouth.

local news, Sports news

Let’s play ball … carefully!

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Gov. Greg Abbott’s decision to lift the mask mandate he instituted when the coronavirus pandemic broke out is going to have a significant impact on one vocal segment of the Texas population.

That would be sports fans who flock to stadiums to cheer the home team on to victory.

Listen up, Amarillo Sod Poodles fans. This blog post is important.

I called the Sod Poodles’ office today and learned that the organization is selling tickets that fill Hodgetown — the team’s downtown ballpark — to 75 percent of capacity. “We’re hoping to get to 100 percent,” a young man told me, “given what the Texas Rangers are planning” for the American League baseball season. The Texas Rangers are going to fill Globe-Life Park in Arlington to the max; although I am quite certain the fans there will be masked up as they cheer for the Rangers.

So it ought to be even with limited seating sold at Hodgetown.

The Sod Poodles’ park seats about 7,000 fans. At 75 percent sales, the Sod Poodles will be playing before about 5,200 fans — give or take — when the Central League home season opens in late May. I am pretty sure that the fans attending the game will be cheering loudly. Which brings me to another point: COVID virus spores travel through the air when human beings shout or scream … or cheer!

That compels me to admonish the Soddies’ fans who are inclined to holler when the home team performs well to mask up.

Hey, I’m pulling for you and for your team. I just don’t want to read about “super spreader events” occurring in Amarillo, Texas.

national news

Biden builds a presidency … and burnishes legacy

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Watching Joseph R. Biden Jr. build his presidency is like watching someone come of age in real time.

You see, I’ve been acutely aware of this individual almost since the time I became involved actively in a political campaign on the other side of our vast nation. Biden got elected to the U.S. Senate in Delaware in 1972; while he was celebrating that victory, my friends and I were licking our wounds out west in Oregon while our presidential candidate, George McGovern, was suffering a monstrous landslide defeat at the hands of President Richard Nixon.

Yes, I watched the young senator go through the personal agony of losing his wife and infant daughter in a car crash before he would take office. I watched him assume his senatorial duties and then grow into the job he inherited.

Over the years I became aware of the leadership roles he assumed as chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee. I watched him pontificate incessantly at times during committee hearings. I winced on occasion as he would bloviate past the time allotted to him.

Then I watched him run for president in 1988, only to crash and burn when he was caught copying remarks from a British politician and using them while trying to tell his own life story. The guy I supported that year for the Democratic nomination, Michael Dukakis, would suffer a landslide loss to Vice President George H.W. Bush.

Sigh …

He ran again for president in 2008 and then got thumped by the eventual nominee, Barack H. Obama … who then selected Biden to run with him as vice president.

And now he has won the highest office, grabbed the brass ring.

Hey, I am sitting now in the middle of what they call Flyover Country. I live in Texas, one of the most reliably Republican states in America. My pride in watching Joe Biden ascend to the highest office hasn’t abated one little bit.

It’s almost as if I am watching someone I “grew up with” along the way. I was barely old enough to vote when Joe Biden won his first federal office in 1972; heck, he wasn’t even old enough to assume his Senate seat until he turned 30 two weeks after that election.

Time has marched on. I am proud of Joe Biden, of his tenacity and of the courage he has exhibited while picking himself up after falling short of his aspirations. I believe the setbacks — and, yes, the tragedy — he has endured have prepared Joe Biden well for the challenges that lie ahead.

State news

Texas AG goes to war with Austin

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton seems to suffer from a lawsuit fetish.

He has sued the city of Austin for having the temerity to refuse to comply with Gov. Greg Abbott’s lifting of a mask mandate. You see, it seems that Austin Mayor Steve Adler doesn’t want to lift the requirement in the city he governs.

Paxton, though, is wagging his proverbial finger at Adler and the city because he supposedly warned them against resisting Abbott’s order. So now he’s taking them to court again, Paxton said via Twitter.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sues Austin over mask mandate | The Texas Tribune

This clown we have for an AG is starting to annoy the daylights out of me. He tried to file a lawsuit that sought to block the certification of Joe Biden’s election as president of the United States, only to be rebuffed by the U.S. Supreme Court that said he lacked any standing to dictate how other states conducted their elections.

Now he’s at it again. Good grief, man.

The Texas Tribune reports: “[Travis County] Judge Brown and I will fight to defend and enforce our local health officials’ rules for as long as possible using all the power and tools available to us,” Austin Mayor Steve Adler said Thursday in a statement. “We promised to be guided by the doctors, science and data as concerns the pandemic and we do everything we can to keep that promise.”

Meanwhile, the Texas AG will waste more money by filing lawsuits that seek to prevent local officials from doing what they deem is best for the people they take an oath to protect.

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