medical news

Investigate? For what?

Ronny “The Twitter King” Jackson keeps yammering about launching an investigation into Dr. Anthony Fauci when Republicans take control of Congress after this year’s midterm election.

Jackson, the rookie congressman from Texas’s 13th District, doesn’t specify what the charges against Fauci would entail. Hmm. Why do you suppose that’s the case?

I figure it’s because the moron doesn’t have a clue. He’s just angry because Fauci keeps telling us it is wise to mask up, to keep our distance from strangers and to take other precautionary measures against getting sick from the COVID-19 virus.

As for Jackson, the nimrod who’s got his share of troubles staring him in his puss, he ought to show a bit more respect for one of world’s premier infectious disease doctors. Indeed, he ought to lay low on Twitter for a while as the House Ethics Committee determines if he broke the damn law by using campaign funds for personal expenses, which has been alleged against this clown.

Jackson, let’s recall once was nominated to become veterans affairs secretary by Donald J. Trump. He pulled his name back after allegations surfaced about his conduct, relating to accusations of harassment, drinking on the job and dispensing drugs a bit too cavalierly.

So, he moved to the Texas Panhandle, ran for Congress and then got elected. Good grief!

He’s been nothing but an insufferable pain in the ass ever since, firing off Twitter messages incessantly castigating the commander in chief and, of course, Dr. Fauci.

I am waiting with bated breath to see what in the name of demagoguery the former doctor — Jackson — plans to investigate about the job Dr. Fauci has done while helping us navigate our way out of this pandemic.

I just wish the Twitter King Jackson would just shut the hell up.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

How bad will it get?

Karl Rove, the man once known derisively as “George W. Bush’s brain,” has laid out what he believes will occur when they count the midterm election ballots in November.

He writes in the Wall Street Journal, “Even Democratic strategists now admit the midterms will be disastrous for their party. “It’s going to be a terrible cycle for Democrats,” Doug Sosnik, one of the party’s best grand strategists, recently told the New York Times. The question is how big the calamity will be. A freeway pileup? Category 5 hurricane? Or Krakatoa with all the attendant consequences?

I do not intend to question the sincerity of Sosnik’s assertion, as reported by Rove, but it kind of begs a question that’s been rattling around my brain for the past few weeks.

It goes like this: Might it be even remotely possible that Democratic strategists are laying out a worst-case scenario with a glimmer of hope that if their losses are less than expected that they can claim a sort of moral victory?

Or, there’s this: Is it possible that the gloom-doom-despair prognosis is hiding some positive outcome, that Democrats actually could retain control of one of the congressional chambers?

I realize that politics can be a cynical game. Politicians and their hired guns — be they Democrat or Republican — look for any angle they can find to suit their agenda.

Since I am perched in the cheap seats out here in Flyover Country, I am nowhere close to the heartbeat of the nation’s political center. I am just wondering whether there could be a bit of gamesmanship being played.

These things do happen. I am just sayin’, man.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news, local news, State news

Lucio deserves new trial

I cannot overstate the significance of the support that a woman condemned to die in Texas prison execution chamber is receiving from both sides of the great political divide in this state.

Melissa Lucio has received a stay of execution from the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. She was slated to die on Thursday for the death of her 2-year-old daughter 15 years ago.

I believe she deserves a new trial, given all the doubt about her conviction and the allegation that the state withheld evidence from her defense team.

What continues to amaze me is the support she is getting from tough-on-crime conservatives in the Legislature, led by Plano Republican state Rep. Jeff Leach, who had the honor of telling Lucio this week about the CCA decision to forestall her execution. Lucio’s reaction was to sob uncontrollably.

Leach is a former member of the ultra-conservative Texas Freedom Caucus; he resigned from the caucus a while ago, citing some issues with the hardline positions it was taking. He still is a conservative, but he appears to be a man with an actual heart.

I applaud the leadership he is taking in fighting for Melissa Lucio.

I happen to oppose capital punishment, but you likely know that already. I also oppose the partisan divide that too often splits politicians along party lines even when the issue compels them to seek common ground.

One of those issues is seeking justice for a prison inmate who might have been convicted wrongly.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Tough to comprehend

I am likely to go to my grave never understanding how a politician can be heard threatening his colleagues over their conduct in the wake of a violent political insurrection can receive — allegedly — a standing ovation when he rises to speak to them in person.

So it was, reportedly, when U.S. House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy spoke to his GOP colleagues today. It all comes after media reports — complete with audio recordings of McCarthy — of the pol’s indignation over the 1/6 riot that sought to subvert our democracy.

I mean, you can hear McCarthy talk angrily of his colleagues’ behavior during and immediately after the riot. Then he said something profoundly stupid to them.

He wasn’t talking “publicly” about them, only “privately,” and added that he wouldn’t ever say those things in public.

Why, the House Republican caucus members just stood and cheered their hero, who wants to be the next speaker of the House if his party takes control of Congress after the midterm election later this year.

Go fu**ing figure.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

‘Insurrection’ growing many legs

The past may be taking the shape of a prologue to an unfolding saga that is far from reaching its conclusion.

Watergate began in June 1972 when some goons were caught breaking into the Democratic National Headquarters in D.C. One thing led to another, and another, and another.

We learned about a coverup and the enormous abuse of power that came from the Oval Office.

It ended with the resignation of President Nixon more than two years later.

Fast-forward to 2020. Donald Trump lost an election. He refused to concede to Joe Biden, who beat him. He stood before a crowd on the Ellipse and told them to “march on the Capitol.” They did and all hell broke loose.

They launched an attack on our democratic form of government, as Congress was meeting on that day to certify the results of the election.

Now we hear about text messages, emails, pleas from family members for Trump to intervene; he didn’t do a thing to stop the riot. We also hear that members of Congress, Trump’s fellow Republicans, were warned against committing violence. The House GOP leader said he would tell Trump to resign; he then denied saying such a thing, only to be shown as a liar.

The 1/6 insurrection is growing more legs, just as the burglary 50 years ago grew them. Indeed, the past may well be prologue.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

We are sinking ever lower

Have we really devolved into a society that applauds a candidate who says a medical official hired to guide the nation out of a killer pandemic should be stood in front of a firing squad and executed?

Never mind. I know the answer. It is yes. It sickens me to my core.

John Benett is chair of the Oklahoma Republican Party. He told a cheering crowd that Dr. Anthony Fauci should be shot by a firing squad. The worst part? The crowd cheered and clapped at the congressional candidate’s hideous message!

The Huffington Post reported:

“We’re fighting communist Democrats, establishment RINOs!” Bennett ranted in a video that Right Wing Watch shared online Tuesday and has now gone viral.

“We’re fighting against a system that stole the election in 2020 and nobody had been held accountable,” he continued, parroting former President Donald Trump’s baseless election fraud claims. “We’re in a war with bureaucrats that have forced vaccine mandates on us, mask mandates on us.”

Oh my goodness.

“In a war”? Is this clown serious? Yeah. He is.

Republicans Cheer As Congressional Candidate Demands Fauci’s Execution By Firing Squad (msn.com)

There is not a single thing I can say that is going to sink into the thick skulls of those who buy into that bullsh**.  I am left only to condemn in the strongest terms possible the kind of hateful demagoguery that has become the norm within what used to be known as a great political party.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news

Population sign already obsolete

Whenever they get around to posting these signs at the Princeton city limits, the city and the Texas Department of Transportation will have to consider replacing them with fresh signs … and numbers.

The 2020 Census puts Princeton’s population at 17,027 residents; the 2010 Census had our once-sleepy little town at 6,807 individuals. The increase has nearly tripled between those two Census periods. 

However, the 17,027 figure already is old news. I can tell you that without a doubt there are many more people living in Princeton at this moment than there were when they stopped counting for the most recent Census.

If I were in charge of keeping track of that number, I would go dizzy trying to catch up with the rapid growth that is occurring along our stretch of U.S. 380 in Collin County, Texas.

I’m just sayin’, man.

For sure, our city is far from alone in this exercise in frustration. McKinney is exploding, as is Plano, Wylie, Farmersville, Frisco, Allen, Anna, Prosper, Melissa and many other North Texas communities. 

When you see the 17,027-resident figure whenever they post the next signs at the edges of our city, just know that the number doesn’t mean a thing. The real number of residents no doubt is far greater.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

medical news

Are we overplaying COVID?

The thought occurred to me today as I was visiting by phone with a dear friend and former colleague: I am starting to wonder if the media aren’t overstating and overplaying these occurrences of COVID-19 positive tests among celebrities.

My friend, who is married to an Amarillo physician, didn’t disagree. I frame it in those terms because she didn’t precisely embrace the notion. She and her husband have seen their share of heartache and tragedy among her husband’s clientele.

To my point … which is that we seem to be entering a new stage of this pandemic in which “testing positive” is just, well, part of the new normal.

Texas Democratic candidate for governor Beto O’Rourke tests positive and the media are all over it; same with Vice President Kamala Harris.

They both report they are fine. They have “mild symptoms.” They’ll isolate for a few days and then be back at whatever it is they do during the day. The same can be said for practically everyone these days who is listed as testing positive for the virus.

I am not selling short the consequence of getting sick with this pandemic. A member of my family became desperately ill shortly after Christmas 2020. I also have lost several friends who have died from the disease. That was then. These days, though, the treatments are vastly improved and with more Americans becoming vaccinated, the instances of serious illness from the disease appear to be waning.

You remember when becoming infected with HIV/AIDS was a virtual death sentence, yes? What’s happened there? People are living long and fruitful lives with the virus that once delivered death with stunning and ruthless efficiency.

I am thinking at this moment that I am not going to get overly worked up over reports that someone in the news has contracted the COVID-19 virus. It is becoming part of living each day.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Big Lie channels Fake News

The most maddening aspect of the Big Lie into which Donald Trump keeps breathing life is how the irony matches the Fake News mantra that the future POTUS made so popular on his way to winning the presidential election in 2016.

Think about this for a moment.

Trump kept hammering the media for promoting “fake news” even as he was uttering nonsense related to President Obama’s place of birth and questioning whether the 44th president was eligible to run for and then serve in the nation’s highest office.

The Trumpkin Corps gobbled it up and swallowed it, not grasping the insane irony of their man’s pronouncements condemning the media for doing their job.

Then the former Liar in Chief lost the 2020 election. He didn’t concede. He has never congratulated President Biden for his victory. Never offered to help him or support him in any fashion. He said the election was “rigged” and “stolen” from him.

The irony is that The Donald has engaged in the most blatant act of electoral theft in U.S. history. He incited the 1/6 insurrection. He didn’t lift a finger to end it as the rioters were beating police officers and sh***ing on the Capitol floor. He has allowed his minions to try to install fake electors to overturn the results that showed Biden winning a clear Electoral College victory. Oh, and he bullied state election officials in Georgia to “find” enough votes to let him win that state’s presidential election.

A “stolen” election? Is this clown serious?

Of course not!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Donald Trump

Give it a rest, Donald … oh, wait!

Part of me wishes Donald J. Trump would stop yammering about an electoral theft that didn’t occur. Then it dawns on me: Why not keep up the charade, given that more Americans are tuning that nonsense out of their minds?

Gerald Baker, former editor in chief of the Wall Street Journal, is the latest conservative to say that The Donald needs to stop yapping about the “voter fraud” that didn’t occur during the 2020 presidential election.

Wall Street Journal Editor Has Had It With Republicans Who Back Donald Trump’s Big Lie (msn.com)

In an opinion piece published Monday, Baker wrote that many prominent Republicans and major donors don’t actually believe Trump’s election lies and would love for him to “go quietly away.”

“It is a desire expressed as fervently in private as it is assiduously and dexterously avoided in public,” said Baker, who served as the WSJ’s editor-in-chief until 2018.

Well, geez. Keep talking about it, Donald. Yeah, it’s old “fake news.” Yeah, it never happened. Sure, Trump has yet to produce a shred of evidence to back up his specious claims of electoral theft.

It’s getting real old, Donald.

So, keep fomenting The Big Lie … loser!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Commentary on politics, current events and life experience