national news

This election matters … seriously!

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

During my many years in print journalism, I sought to remind voters in communities in Texas and in Oregon — where I worked — that local elections mattered more than national elections. Why? Because the local folks set tax policy that paid for essential services we need and use: police and fire, water, garbage pickup, street upkeep.

That was then. The presidential election that awaits 49 days from now might supplant local elections as the most relevant to our needs.

It’s Joe Biden vs. Donald Trump. Biden wants to replace Trump and restore a sense of national honor, of empathy, of concern for our safety. Biden wants to lead the nation through the pandemic that is still killing too many of us daily. Trump is continuing to lie about what he’s allegedly done. Biden wants to protect Americans against all threats, even those that arrive in the form of a killer virus.

We are being forsaken by a president who doesn’t give a rat’s a** about us. His concern is focused solely on his re-election. One might be able to link the two matters — re-election and a president’s concern for U.S. citizens. Except that Trump’s continual lying about the coronavirus renders his actual caring about us absolutely moot.

It is true that presidents don’t set tax policy. City councils still establish how much we pay for essential municipal services. So do our county commissioners courts. None of this is meant to diminish their relevance in our daily lives.

I do intend to take particular note of the stakes of the national election and to suggest that this Biden-Trump choice means more to us individually than most of the presidential choices we have made … arguably since the beginning of this glorious republic.

Both candidates call this the most consequential election in history. I believe them and I intend to do all I can to ensure we make a change at the top of our political chain of command.

environmental news

Reinvest in renewables

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Politics is everywhere, including places where it doesn’t belong.

As Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden notes, fires and hurricanes don’t discriminate between “red and blue states.” He is seeking to rely on science to determine what the national response should be to fight what he has identified correctly as an existential threat to the nation.

That is climate change.

Donald Trump took office in January 2017 and began dismantling environmental rules and regulations established by the Obama administration. He fought to restore a full-throttle fossil fuel exploratory policy.

What the president ignored is that Obama’s effort to develop clean, renewable energy actually contributed to this nation’s independence from foreign-produced fossil fuels. Do you recall when Republicans blasted Hillary Clinton for saying in 2016 that she intended to eliminate jobs related to the coal industry? They ignored the rest of her statement, which was that she intended to replace those jobs with those associated with renewable energy development.

So it was prior to the time Donald Trump took office.

The Pacific Coast wildfires are the direct result of a changing worldwide climate, as scientists have affirmed. Trump is casting aside those analyses. He said “forest management” needs improvement, which he insists will prevent the explosive fires that have incinerated more than 4 million acres in California, Oregon and Washington.

Joe Biden is vowing for all he is worth to restore the effort to develop renewable energy sources. I haven’t heard him say he would propose ending fossil fuel exploration and development.

We have on our hands a direct national security threat that has nothing to do with terrorism. It has everything to do with the changing climate that is bringing untold destruction in the form of fire, heavy wind, shattering coastal surf.

This great nation needs national leadership from the top of the governmental chain of command. It isn’t getting it from the individual in charge at this moment. I am quite confident we will receive it when we replace him with someone who will listen intently to scientists who know what they are talking about.

medical news

By all means, HHS flack … hit the road

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Michael Caputo, an embattled communications chief for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, has issued an apology and says he is considering taking medical leave.

Good idea, dude. Make it a permanent leave.

Caputo apologized for bringing negative publicity onto HHS for remarks he made accusing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of conspiring to concoct bad news to undermine Donald J. Trump.

Of course, Caputo had no evidence to back it up. He just blurted it out. I also should point out that Caputo has zero public health experience and was put in his job as HHS flack as a political payoff from the Trump campaign.

The CDC is working overtime trying to find a way out of the pandemic crisis. To my way of thinking, the pros at the CDC have little time to conspire. They have their hands quite full trying to prevent more deaths and illness from the COVID-19 virus.

What we are witnessing is continued chaos among those in the Trump administration who supposedly are charged with delivering cogent messages on the nation’s ongoing fight against the coronavirus.

Instead we get nutty conspiracy theories by a top-level administration who doesn’t belong in the job he occupies.

Take your leave, Michael Caputo. Do not come back.

environmental news

Trump denies science … wow!

(Photo credit should read ORLANDO SIERRA/AFP/Getty Images)

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Donald Trump plastered a silly grin on his mug and then told a California environmental analyst that “I don’t think science knows” about the cause of wildfires that have incinerated millions of acres in three Pacific Coast states.

Trump ventured to California to inspect the damage done by the fires that have scorched about 5 million acres in Oregon and Washington in addition to California. He continues to insist that the way to prevent the intense fires is to practice something called “forest management.” He contends the states aren’t doing enough of it to keep the forests from igniting.

What he ignores, of course, is that much of the timber that has been burned stands on federal land, which comprises a great deal of the real estate in states out west.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom made it clear that in his view there is no “debate” over the existence of climate change. I happen to agree with the governor. I also happen to agree with scientists around the world that human activity has contributed greatly to the changing climate and that we are hurtling toward the point where Earth likely cannot be saved from the catastrophe that awaits.

So, to hear the president of the United States continue to deny scientific findings because he “thinks” science can be wrong displays a level of ignorance that puts the entire planet in dire peril.

national news

Michael Cohen: hero or zero?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I am trying to figure out my feelings toward Michael Cohen, the former Donald Trump lawyer/friend/fixer who has turned ferociously against the man to whom he once pledged blind loyalty.

Cohen has written a book titled “Disloyal.” He has been making the talk show circuit from his home, given that he remains under house arrest for crimes he committed on Donald Trump’s behalf.

Cohen is a convicted perjurer, which is a legal word that means “liar.”

Now, though, he is trying to make amends for lying on Trump’s behalf. Cohen has talked about the treachery he performed for Trump, how he got sucked into Trump’s cult of personality. About how he fell for Trump’s sales pitch.

This mixed feeling I have toward Cohen is driving me a bit batty. My first instinct would be to salute Cohen for acknowledging the wrong turn he took years ago. However, the damage he did while working for Trump wipes away a good bit of that instinct to cheer Michael Cohen.

I don’t know if I will purchase “Disloyal.” I know a lot already about the man for whom he worked. He won’t tell me much of anything I don’t already believe about him. He says Trump’s hatred of Barack Obama is based exclusively on President Obama’s race … to which I say, “no sh**?”

Maybe, over time, my feelings about Cohen will crystallize. I cannot get there just yet. He means to make amends. I’ll at least give him credit for making the effort. For now, that’s the best I can deliver to this convicted liar.

national news

Trump undermines our electoral system

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

When have you ever heard of a president contend that an election will be “rigged” in any context? When has a president been so callous, careless and contemptuous of our electoral system to suggest that it would be corrupted enough to produce a result that he doesn’t prefer?

I am astonished beyond measure at the rhetoric that is coming from Donald John Trump as he seeks to undermine the very electoral system he took an oath to protect.

Trump has been beating the “Democrats will rig the election” drum. He stands before rally crowds and declares that the Democratic Party is seeking to “rig” the 2020 election by sending out “millions of ballots” to people who aren’t entitled to receive them.

For starters, there is not a single shred of truth to Trump’s specious assertion. Beyond that particular lie — which is precisely what it is — there is the very idea that Trump would seek to undermine the electoral system.

Just ponder that for a moment.

Trump’s presidential oath included a pledge to protect the system of government he was elected to run. What in the name of constitutional integrity is Donald Trump seeking to do here? I think I know. He seeks to torpedo the very electoral system by sowing seeds of doubt over its integrity.

His target du jour is mail-in voting. Several states have been conducting all-mail voting for years. Trump says the system invites widespread voter fraud. No! It does nothing of the sort!

My home state of Oregon was the first state to enact a vote by mail system. It did so in 1998. A study by the Heritage Foundation, a noted conservative think tank, has revealed some fascinating data.

During the time Oregon has allowed voting by mail, Heritage uncovered 15 cases of outright voter fraud. How many ballots were cast during the time period examined? Nearly 15.5 million of them!

Fifteen cases of fraud against 15.5 million total ballots. Does that look to you like a case of “rampant voter fraud?”

And yet … Donald Trump keeps hammering at the voter fraud red herring as if it’s the real thing. It is a figment of Trump’s political strategists. It poses a serious danger to our very system of free of fair elections.

To think that this is all coming from the president of the United States. Despicable.

national news

Biden needs to avoid this tag

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Joseph R. Biden Jr. needs to do all he can to avoid being labeled by historians as the candidate who lost a presidential campaign to an incompetent, immoral, corrupt politician.

Donald Trump is the aforementioned individual Biden is facing in the upcoming presidential election. Will the incumbent slither his way to a second term as president? I have no possible idea.

I am hoping for all I can that Biden defeats Trump bigly.

However, Trump’s uncanny knack of wiggling free of political crises gives me the heebie-jeebies. While it is weird enough that Trump managed to defeat a demonstrably more qualified candidate for president in 2016, it would be far beyond bizarre for Trump — with the hideous record he has compiled in his current term as president — to pull it off again this year.

You have to get busy, Mr. Biden. Millions of us are counting on you.

environmental news

Forest management vs. climate change?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Donald J. Trump continues to deny the impact of climate change on our nation and the world.

He went to California today to “inspect” the damage being done by fires that are ravaging the Pacific Coast states.

Does he say a word — anything at all — that recognizes the impact that climate change is delivering to those suffering from Mother Nature’s wrath? Nope. He said states need to do a better job of “managing” their forests. They need to clean them up better, get rid of the fuel that dries up and explodes in flames.

Oh, wait! How does this situation develop? I am going to presume that climate change is bringing about the intense fires.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom declared that the “debate is over” regarding climate change. I believe the governor is correct. I also believe the president is wrong to focus on forest management as a way to extinguish the flames.

media news

Minds are made up

1 Comment

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I get this question on occasion. It’s fairly rare that someone asks, but given that I get the query, I’ll speak to it briefly here.

The question: Why don’t you engage people who disagree with statements you make on your blog?

I generally dislike engaging in a give-and-take because people’s minds are made up. As is my own mind. I am not going to change anyone else’s view of a public policy issue and, I dare say, neither will anyone likely change my own mind.

That’s the short answer. A more expansive response seems appropriate.

I write this blog as my final statement on an issue. For instance, I have published an endless stream of posts that assert that Donald J. Trump is fundamentally unfit for the office he occupies. I have sought to say why I believe that throughout this man’s foray into political life. My mind is made up. I will not be persuaded to change my mind that Trump is somehow actually fit for the presidency. What would be the point of going back and forth with someone who believes Trump is the next “great president”?

It’s pretty much true on most issues. I tend to make up my mind before I post something on High Plains Blogger.

This does not mean I do not welcome critical comments. I most certainly do welcome them. Whether you respond directly to the blog’s site on Word Press, or on Facebook, or any other social medium that distributes these posts, I say, simply: Bring it!

I am highly unlikely, though, to argue with those critics. I am too old to waste my time trying to persuade someone that their views are all wrong and that mine are all right.

I just know it all to be true. That’s good enough for me. It’s also good enough for my critics.

military news

Why the silence, indeed?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I found this letter to the editor of the Dallas Morning News today that I want to share on this blog.

Five times I have written my congressman, Van Taylor, about his silence on reports of Russian bounties, the president’s alleged comments about prisoners of war, those killed in actions and wounded veterans. He has not responded directly. A staffer called after my letter on bounties but all he did was list the bills Taylor supported.

Taylor touts his service as a Marine. Why is he silent on the statements from Trump, actual and alleged, that denigrate military people? Has he forgotten why he served and those with whom he served?

Michael Bulkeley, Richardson

***

Rep. Taylor is my congressman, too. He is a first-term Republican whom I have met and discussed some local issues. He seems like an earnest young man.

However … I want to echo Mr. Bulkeley’s letter to the DMN. Taylor, though, is far from alone in the GOP silence on reports that Russian goons have paid Taliban terrorists bounties for Americans they have killed on Afghanistan battlefields.

We are witnessing a shameful and shocking fealty to a president who has demonstrated a horrifying disrespect for those who make the kinds of sacrifice that he infamously sought to avoid during the Vietnam War. Van Taylor, given his combat experience as a Marine in Afghanistan, ought to be yelling the most loudly in challenging Trump’s silence on the Russian campaign against our fighting forces.

He isn’t. Nor are his GOP colleagues in both chambers of Congress.

Think about this for a moment. Traditional Republican politicians would be aghast to hear such things about this longstanding hostile foreign power. Donald Trump has acknowledged already that he has declined to bring it up with Vladimir Putin during several phone calls he has had with the Russian president. What the hell?

The GOP congressional caucus also has sat in stone-cold silence over The Atlantic story in which Trump reportedly called service personnel “suckers” and “losers” if they are injured or killed in combat. Indeed, has Rep. Taylor called Donald Trump out for the remarks attributed to him in The Atlantic? I am waiting patiently.

What we have here, I daresay, is a Republican political caucus that is too beholden to an individual. It is a disgraceful example of blind and muted loyalty to a president who demands it of others but who refuses to return that loyalty to those who defend our nation.

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