national news

No huggin’ and kissin’

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

The U.S. House of Representatives select committee assigned to get to the truth behind the Sixth of January insurrection against our democratic process convened its hearing today.

The nation saw a good bit of video from the treasonous riot by terrorists who stormed Capitol Hill that day.

What the did not see was anything resembling what the 45th POTUS said occurred. We didn’t see “huggin’ and kissin'” by D.C. and Metropolitan Police officers with the crowd that stormed Capitol Hill.

Oh, no. We saw violence in the flesh! We saw men and women beating officers within an inch of their lives. We heard them scream “traitor!” at police officers seeking to defend the Capitol against the riotous mob.

Hugging and kissing? It, um, wasn’t there.

And yet … we are going to hear an interpretation of those hideous events by Republican defenders of the former Insurrectionist in Chief. They will seek to turn the tables on Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who appointed the select panel. They will wonder out loud about security concerns that Pelosi reportedly knew prior to the riot.

The former POTUS hasn’t yet taken an ounce of responsibility for inciting the riot. He hasn’t yet accepted that he lost the 2020 presidential election. The ex-Moron in Chief hasn’t yet done a single thing to demonstrate loyalty to the Constitution, to the government, to the sacred democratic process.

The select panel, which comprises seven Democrats and two Republicans, will seek to get to the truth behind what happened that day.

If I could ask one thing of the panel, I want them to look at this: I want them to probe deeply what the then-POTUS was doing inside the White House while the mob threatened to hang Vice President Mike Pence. 

What’s more, let us not be shy or coy about what we’re talking about here. The riot was an insurrection in its purest form. It was a day — to borrow a phrase — that will live in infamy.

national news

Alternative reality vs. the truth

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By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

You might recall how POTUS 45’s senior policy adviser referred to “alternative facts” as they regarded the size of the inaugural crowd on Jan. 20, 2017.

Here we are, more than four years later and the ex-POTUS’s corps of cultists are wrapped in an alternative reality as the House select committee commences its hearing into the insurrectionist riot of Jan. 6.

The House panel, comprising Democrats and Republicans, are going to sift through a mountain of facts relating to what the entire world witnessed on that horrible day.

However, I fear that none of those facts will sink in to the noggins of the cultists who continue to believe The Big Lie that POTUS 45 spews forth, the lie that sparked the riot of Jan. 6.

What I witnessed that day was an all-out assault on our democratic process. The terrorists sought to prevent the certification of the 2020 presidential election and hand the presidency back to the Insurrectionist in Chief who lost to President Biden.

The alternative reality will be a difficult wall to knock down. I sincerely wish the select committee well as it pores through the evidence we all witnessed in real time.

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Tough ‘reality TV’ viewing awaits

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

This much is utterly certain: I am going to have a difficult time watching and listening to the U.S. congressional hearing into the Jan. 6 insurrection against the government.

The testimony I am hearing today from one of the Capitol police officers is compelling, disturbing and heartbreaking.

The video to which the world was treated at the start of today’s opening hearing is as difficult to watch as the 9/11 terrorist attack that occurred nearly 20 years ago.

To think that some in Congress — namely its Republican caucus members — equate the insurrection to a “tourist” excursion is the most outrageous insult I can imagine.

Proceed with wisdom and discernment, members of the House select committee. The world is watching.

national news

If only he would do this

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By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

If the 45th president of the U.S. of A. had an ounce, a smidgen, a sliver, the tiniest grain of decency buried somewhere within his overfed body, he would call a press conference.

Then he would say the following before taking a few questions from the media:

My fellow Americans, I am here today to urge every resident of this great land to get vaccinated against the COVID pandemic virus.

As you know, my family and I all have received our vaccines. Yes, my wife and I did so secretly in our final months in the White House. My point, though, is that we did it. I urge you all to follow our lead.

Do not listen to those who question the effectiveness of the vaccine. Do not heed the warnings of crazy things happening to your body. I am going to be a human testament to the vaccines’ effectiveness and their safety.

The surge in the Delta variant is rooted solely in the unvaccinated among us. We must stop this spread. Vaccines are the only way to do it.

***

The 45th POTUS won’t ever say such a thing in public. Why not? Because doing so would require him to reveal that he actually cares about you and me, about the country he once swore an oath to defend and protect and about those who have been stricken by the virus that has killed more than 600,000 Americans.

He won’t do it because he cares only about himself.

Lightning might strike. Were it to do so, we could save many thousands of lives.

national news

Let the probe begin

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

They’re going to start a congressional hearing that we all should hope will produce some clear-headed truth into what transpired on the Sixth of January this year.

That day we all witnessed an all-out assault on our democratic process by a mob of terrorists who could not accept that their hero — the 45th president — had lost a free and fair election to Joseph R. Biden Jr.

They engaged in the worst attack on Capitol Hill since the War of 1812. I am one American patriot who welcomes the select committee’s assignment given to it by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. It is to find the truth and to present ways to prevent such an egregious attack on our system from recurring.

Pelosi picks Kinzinger for select panel … yes! | High Plains Blogger

Will the select panel — comprising members of both parties — be able to conduct their investigation fairly and without bias? I believe it will. I do not expect the rabid minority among Americans to accept anything they present. Their minds (such as they are) remain closed tightly to anything that would cast POTUS 45 in a negative light.

The committee will proceed as planned. It will call witnesses. It will grill them intently on what they knew, when they knew it and what they did in real time to prevent to horrifying assault from enveloping the Capitol.

The process the mob threatened had commenced the certification of President Biden’s election. Biden’s predecessor hasn’t yet accepted that he lost the election. He continues to promote The Big Lie about vote fraud. Indeed, it was The Big Lie that led to the assault on the Capitol, to the injury of dozens of people — including police officers on duty to protect the Capitol and those who work there — and the deaths of several others … including one of those valiant officers.

To think that congressional Republicans are resisting this investigation is mind-blowing to the max. However, the investigation will commence. I will look forward to the select committee finishing its job and reporting to the rest of the world what it learned.

medical news

Vaccines alone can kill the virus

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

If it weren’t so damn hot outside at the moment, I might be inclined to climb a ladder onto the roof of my North Texas house and shout at the top of my lungs: Get your sorry ass vaccinated!

The temperature is 100 degrees. I am too old to be climbing up on roofs. So I am left to use this forum — my blog — to repeat a mantra I will continue to repeat until we see a reduction in the infection/hospitalization/death rate from the COVID-19 virus.

Or the variant it has spawned.

The misinformation war is still being waged. The antagonists are the right-wing propagandists who insist the vaccine does harm to our bodies and the the medical experts who counter that the vaccines — all of them — are safe and effective.

President Biden wanted to turn the corner on the vaccine by the Fourth of July. The nation fell short of the total vaccination goal the president had set. It is not his fault, I must reiterate, that we have failed to meet the goal. It’s the fault of the legions of liars who continue to sow doubt about the vaccines. They have blood on their hands in the form of the lives that are still being lost to the pandemic.

The delta variant continues to fell Americans. The vast, overwhelming majority of those who are falling victim to it have not been vaccinated. It is on them, therefore, to take responsibility for the illness they are suffering. And for the misery they are creating among their family members. Oh, and for the threat they pose to others who also lack the full vaccine.

I just don’t know what it is going to take to persuade enough Americans of the fatal folly they are pursuing by refusing the give up the partisan politicking in the midst of this war against a killer virus.

Meanwhile, I will continue to insist from my fully vaccinated house in Collin County, Texas, that only the vaccine can eradicate the virus.

Are we crystal clear? Good. Now, get the shot(s) you need to eradicate this killer.

national news

Golden Rule, anyone?

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

This story almost got past me, but I want to offer a brief response to what I believe is a growing trend among those who feel personally aggrieved by comments delivered by public figures.

Fox News talking head Tucker Carlson reportedly was accosted by a fellow who objected to the blowhard’s comments, presumably about the COVID-19 virus. Carlson was shopping with his family. The guy who berated him I suppose believed that since Carlson speaks to all of us via TV that it’s all right to speak to him in any venue, in any context, at any time.

Wrong! I harken back to the Golden Rule, the item in Scripture that instructs us to treat others as we would want to be treated. Therefore, I venture to suggest that no human being would want to be hassled, harangued and hectored by total strangers even if they are in the public eye spouting public policy.

I am not wired to confront individuals in that fashion. Other public officials have suggested that it’s OK to get in the faces of those who say objectionable things. I believe they are mistaken.

I also believe that everyone — even those in the public eye — are entitled to spend private time with family members.

Don’t lecture me about the First Amendment’s free speech clause. I know what it says and what it means. My reading of it, though, tells me it does not give anyone license to verbally assault other Americans whenever they damn well feel like it.

Let’s show some respect, man.

local news

Speak up, Mac!

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

There is no way on God’s good Earth that this will happen, but I am going to ask it anyway of a man I know fairly well.

Mac Thornberry no longer serves in Congress; he retired at the end of 2020 after serving for 25 years as a congressman representing the 13th District in the House of Representatives. He hails from Clarendon and represented the Texas Panhandle.

He was succeeded — certainly not replaced — by a blowhard right-winger, Ronny Jackson, who now says that President Biden should resign because he doesn’t have the mental acuity to do the job.

My request of Mac Thornberry is this: Will you issue a statement condemning the antics of the moron who succeeded you?

I have no direct contact these days with Thornberry. I don’t even know where he lives. Some of his key former congressional aides and allies do read this blog. Perhaps they will forward this request to him. I got to know Thornberry well, working for 18 years as editorial page editor of the Amarillo Globe-News. Mac and I started our new gigs during the same week in January 1995: he as a congressman and me at the AGN.

I am simply astonished and appalled at Jackson’s conduct since taking office. He has become a Twitter troll who models his public pronouncements after the 45th POTUS, a fellow he served for a time as White House physician. The ex-POTUS wanted Jackson to lead the Department of Veterans Affairs, but then pulled his nomination when it was alleged that the retired Navy admiral drank on the job and issued prescriptions to individuals whom, um, didn’t need them. He earned the nickname “Candy Man,” if you get my drift.

Now he’s in Congress and has become a favorite of right-wing media talk-show hosts because of his incessant criticism of President Biden. He has launched a senseless, mindless, brainless, thoughtless campaign against the COVID vaccine campaign, declaring as recently as this past week that the “pandemic is over.” Well, it ain’t over … doc!

As for Thornberry, he is enjoying retired life somewhere these days. I just wish he could expend some of the political capital he acquired by condemning the blather that keeps pouring forth from the guy who took his seat in Congress.

national news

Ex-POTUS builds legacy of turmoil

(AP Photo/Jeffrey Phelps)

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

The 45th president of the United States took office more than four years ago vowing to be an “unconventional” POTUS.

He didn’t deliver on many of his campaign promises, but he surely did on that one.

The man I refuse these days to ID by name on this blog has morphed into without question the most “unconventional” former president in U.S. history. He is building a legacy of mistrust, disbelief, deceit, self-enrichment and self-aggrandizement and, oh yes, all those lies — including the Big Lie about the outcome of the 2020 election.

Just as I refused to attach the term “President” directly to the former POTUS’s name while he occupied the nation’s highest office, I have taken to refusing even to type his name in any form. I cannot do it. The sight of his name — not to mention the sound of his voice — simply sickens me to the max.

I vowed not to dwell too much on POTUS 45 now that he has left office. I intend to look forward. I am doing so even as I bang out these few words about the former Insurrectionist in Chief.

This individual’s legacy is important to ponder as well. President Biden is seeking to craft a legacy of his own even this early in his term in office. He must do so against the backdrop of the legacy that his immediate predecessor left and which he is building now even as a private citizen.

I had harbored a hope that there might be a reckoning coming from POTUS 45, that he might decide to give up his idiotic pursuit of being “reinstated” as president. That he might call President Biden and say, “You know, Joe, I thought I had a shot at all this. It’s clear that I do not. Therefore, I am going to summon reporters tomorrow to my resort in Florida and tell them — and the world — that you are the legitimately elected president of the United States. I wish you success.” 

That won’t happen. His legacy will be built on the lies he’ll keep telling and on the idiocy that will continue to spew forth.

He still has a chance to turn the corner on an election he lost. Sadly, I fear he won’t take it.

national news

GOP now joins the vaccine bandwagon

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

There can be no excusing or even forgiving many prominent Republican U.S. politicians’ shameful denigration of the effort to vaccinate Americans against the COVID-19 virus.

Still, it is with a qualified feeling of gratitude that I welcome their insistence now that it is time for all Americans to get vaccinated.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell arguably is the most prominent GOP pol to climb aboard the vaccine bandwagon. Others are singing from that song sheet: U.S. House whip Steve Scalise, Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, even Kevin McCarthy, the embattled House GOP leader. They’re on board, too.

It wasn’t that many weeks ago in which some GOP politicians were dismissing the vaccine. Some of the nut jobs among the Republican congressional caucus — namely the QAnon and Freedom Caucus cabal — continue to actually applaud Americans’ decision to forgo vaccination.

They are the loony birds among the politically powerful elite who hold tremendous sway among too many American voters.

President Biden laments the “pandemic among the unvaccinated” that is driving up infection/hospitalization/mortality rates in the country. Biden is fighting a GOP contingent in Congress and in statehouses across the nation that are arguing an opposite message. The sad truth is that the anti-vaxxers are winning the argument … at least for the time being.

A glimmer of good news, though, is surfacing among many Republican politicians who have decided that the more of their followers who get sick and possibly die from the virus, the less strong their political power base remains.

If they can persuade enough Americans to turn the tide against the variant that is sickening so many of us, then I might be willing to forgive them for their utter irresponsibility.

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