Category Archives: State news

crime news, national news, State news

Age limits on guns: ‘unconstitutional’?

Greg Abbott cannot be serious … but he surely is being serious when he declares that attempts to increase the minimum age for individuals to buy high-powered rifles are “unconstitutional.”

I will have to disagree with the Texas governor, a Republican who continues to hide behind a canard that declares the Second Amendment doesn’t specify age limits for keeping and bearing arms.

The debate has arisen in the wake of the Uvalde school massacre when an 18-year-old shooter purchased two AR-15 rifles, then walked into Robb Elementary School where he killed 19 children and two educators before the cops killed him.

The Texas Tribune reported: Abbott at his Wednesday campaign event brought up court rulings against gun restrictions from the past three months, including a federal court in Fort Worth on Thursday that struck down a Texas law limiting adults under 21 from carrying handguns. U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman wrote that the Second Amendment does not specify limits on age.

Greg Abbott says raising the age to buy assault rifle is unconstitutional | The Texas Tribune

Pittman is correct. The Second Amendment makes no mention of age limits. I guess the judge presumes, therefore, that a six-year-old is able to carry a pistol in his pocket. Hey, the Constitution is silent on age limits, right?

That, of course, is nonsense. It is in my mind just as nonsensical to suggest that state legislatures or Congress, for that matter, cannot enact laws that restrict the age of those who can purchase weapons such as those the moron used in Uvalde.

Therein sits one more reason to vote Greg Abbott out of office when Election Day rolls around.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

political news, State news

Last hurrah for Beto?

Oh, brother, I hate thinking about this, but I just have to get something off my chest.

It is that those of us who want to see Texas Democrats break the stranglehold that Texas Republicans have clamped on the roster of statewide public office might have to start looking for even fresher faces to carry their message forward.

I am thinking specifically of Beto O’Rourke, the Democratic nominee for Texas governor. This might be the last hurrah for Beto.

I keep reading information about polling that puts Gov. Greg Abbott out front by around 7 to 9 percentage points, which is beyond the margin of error built into these polling surveys. It just feels to me that Beto is running out of steam.

He already came close to defeating Sen. Ted Cruz in 2018. He got many Texans’ hearts fluttering when he came within 3 percentage points of defeating Cruz. Then he ran for president of the United States in 2020; his candidacy never grew wings.

Now he’s making the case yet again for governor. He has been handed tremendous issues on which to campaign: Abbott’s horrible handling of the border crisis; his mishandling of his response to the Uvalde school massacre; Abbott’s fixation with blaming President Biden over every issue that flashes in front of his mug.

They don’t seem to be sticking to Abbott. At least not according to the public opinion polling.

Look, I want O’Rourke to win. I am doing everything within my limited ability to make it happen. Hey, lightning could strike! There might be something of a political miracle in the making that escapes my attention.

But if not … well, I believe it might be time for Beto to call it good and leave the fight for someone else.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

media news, national security, political news, State news

Do as I say, not do …

3 Comments

This is the opening paragraph of a story published today by the Texas Tribune …

Monica De La Cruz, a firebrand Republican running in a fiercely competitive South Texas race, received thousands of dollars for personal business interests from federal COVID relief programs despite disparaging federal assistance programs as harmful to the U.S. economy.

Man, you just have to love the kind of reporting that exposes politicians’ hypocrisy in this Age of Hypocrites.

Here’s the rest of the story. Take a peek. It’s worth your time.

Monica De La Cruz cashes in on COVID aid, trashes programs | The Texas Tribune

The Tribune points out that De La Cruz is the latest Republican — yeah, this is mostly a GOP affliction — to criticize Democrats’ policies while scarfing up the goodies for their own gain.

So it is with this GOP candidate for Congress.

Do you recall in 2020 when Republicans railed against President Biden’s efforts to pump money into repairing and upgrading our infrastructure? Then, once Congress approved it Biden signed it into law, they stood up and boasted about all the money that was coming to their states and congressional districts.

The Tribune reported further about De La Cruz’s duplicity: “Monica De La Cruz raged against relief funding for Texas small businesses, but what she didn’t mention was that she and her family happily took nearly $200,000 of that same aid for themselves. Her hypocritical agenda of ‘Help for me, but not for thee’ is politics at its worst and South Texans deserve better,” said Monica Robinson, a spokesperson for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

Where I come from, such blatant hypocrisy is a deal-breaker.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news, State news

Public service or sacrifice?

It is virtually impossible to find any situation equal to what public servants are experiencing in this era of petulance, but I might have a close example.

Gillespie County, Texas, no longer has an elections department because its officials have resigned over the harassment they have received in light of the 2020 presidential election. Teachers have quit their jobs because parents have grown intolerably angry over mask mandates and other requirements imposed to fight the COVID-19 pandemic.

The closest example to this I have experienced in my lifetime occurred in the late 1960s and early 1970s when Americans turned their anger over the Vietnam War to those of us who participated in it. Our military personnel were following lawful orders but when they returned home from that war, they were treated in many cases like war criminals.

We grew out of that anger … eventually.

My hope now is that we can outgrow what is occurring now.

As the Dallas Morning News noted in an editorial:

This needs to stop. We believe in an America where people are willing to listen to each other, where they are willing to see the humanity in another person, where we are willing to admit maybe there is another side to the story.

That’s called maturity. It’s something that’s in too short supply these days. Some growing up would do us good.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

State news

Waiting for fur to fly

It’s going to happen any day now. Beto O’Rourke and Greg Abbott are going to don the brass knuckles and will start throwing rhetorical haymakers at each other in the race for Texas governor.

Yes, I know … I have seen the polls that show the Republican incumbent, Abbott, holding onto a 7-point (give or take) lead over the Democrat O’Rourke. And, yes, I want Beto to win.

I am not looking forward to seeing these men sling rocks at each other via my TV screen. However, we know that in Texas, politics is what the late Sen. and treasury secretary Lloyd Bentsen used to call a “contact sport.”

The Abbott ads so far have been tame. They feature his wife Cecelia recalling their early years together and the courage he showed recovering from the accident that crippled him for life. That’s fine. I want to know what he’s going to do for me now … not that it matters much what he says. Gov. Abbott already has disappointed me to the point that he’s lost my vote forever.

As for Beto, he’s going to make abortion and gun violence the twin cornerstones of his campaign. One bit of advice: Don’t spend an inordinate amount of airtime telling us what we know, that Abbott has failed on both issues; tell us what you’re going to do to fix them both.

OK, are we good? Let the campaign commence in earnest.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news, education news, State news

Police chief had to go!

Pete Arredondo had become a household name in communities throughout the nation for reasons he likely never imagined when he first strapped on a firearm and pinned a badge on his chest.

Well, now the embattled top cop for the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District no longer works for the school district. Its board of trustees today voted unanimously to fire Arredondo because of the former chief’s shameful response to the massacre that erupted at Robb Elementary School in the South Texas community.

Nineteen precious children were slain that day, along with two heroic teachers who fought to save their lives. Arredondo led the UCISD police force that responded to the shooter who had walked into the school.

Then he did nothing! Arredondo said eventually in the aftermath that he didn’t know he would be in charge of the police response.

Imagine the full-on rage the community would have expressed had the school board decided to keep Arredondo on its payroll.

Yep, he had become far more than a “distraction.”

For my money, the man should find work far away from law enforcement.

I doubt that Arredondo’s discomfort will end just because the school board canned him. He will face countless lawsuits from the loved ones of those who died in the massacre. And he should!

Uvalde now can move on. It won’t ever forget what happened on that terrible day. At least, though, the community no longer will carry the burden of paying the salary of a law enforcement officer who failed to do his job.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news, State news

Yes, we have a border crisis

Texas Democrats, you have a problem of your own making, and it would be wise for you to own it and then propose some solutions to the issue that is creating the problem.

I am going to concur with an editorial published by the Dallas Morning News over the weekend that says Democrats need to admit publicly that Texas has an illegal migrant problem.

Democrats’ inability or unwillingness to state what appears to be obvious is costing them politically. If they have any hope of returning to power in this state, then they need to speak truth to those of us who need to hear it.

The DMN takes note of Democratic gubernatorial candidate Beto O’Rourke’s reluctance to talk honestly about illegal immigration: Beto O’Rourke has been twisting himself in knots trying to walk the line between saying something needs to be done at the border while not offending a base of voters for whom any enforcement is too much. O’Rourke can’t even seem to settle himself on whether the Trump-era Title 42 requirement that migrants be returned to Mexico should be revoked. He waffled on the matter with a suggestion it should remain in place, then clarified it should be revoked after a scolding from leftist activists.

Check out the editorial here: Texas Democrats can’t admit there is a border crisis (dallasnews.com)

Yes, we have a border crisis. Republicans’ bellicose rhetoric and their demagoguery using terms such as “invasion” are profoundly wrong and unhelpful. However, as the Morning News noted, the bigger political consequence falls on Democrats.

They need to step up. Immediately would be nice … if it isn’t too late.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news, State news

Another Democratic sleeper emerges

Just as Texas Democrats seem to pin their hopes on Beto O’Rourke breaking the Republican vise-grip on statewide elected office, another Democrat emerges to, um, quite possibly become the one who does the deed.

Rochelle Garza is the Democratic Party nominee for Texas attorney general, the high-profile contest featuring a Republican who, by all rights, should be in jail by now.

Garza is a former lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union — the bogeyman of the right, but in fact the organization dedicated to protecting our Bill of Rights. She is facing Ken Paxton, the GOP incumbent AG who has been under felony indictment almost since he took office in 2015; he is awaiting trial on securities fraud and could spend a hefty amount of time in the slammer if a jury convicts him.

A recent Dallas Morning News/University of Texas-Tyler poll shows Garza surging against Paxton, trailing the AG by two percentage points. Which makes the race a virtual dead heat.

Can this so-called “upstart” defeat the soiled and sullied AG, the guy who saw a lawsuit he filed against states that had seated electors in support of President Biden tossed out because he lacked any standing in the matter? You see, Paxton is a lousy lawyer to boot, in addition to being an alleged crook and a cheat.

A Collin County grand jury indicted Paxton on a charge that he failed to inform securities investors of his connections to an investment company. The case has been kicked around from court to court. By all rights, it should have been adjudicated long ago, but it hasn’t.

Just when many of us thought the key to returning Texas to a two-party-state status rested with Beto O’Rourke’s bid to defeat Gov. Greg Abbott, it well might occur if Rochelle Garza can keep surging and give Ken Paxton a stiff shove out the door.

I am eternally hopeful.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

State news

MAGA takes new form

So … you think you know what MAGA means, yes?

It has become sort of a term of art, an acronym for Make America Great Again. But when you use the acronym form it becomes an adjective, as in “MAGA voter,” or “MAGA policy.”

Ah, yes. Now comes the newest MAGA, which is one that I would be inclined heavily to support. The new form stands for Mothers Against Greg Abbott.

This MAGA’s unofficial godmother is Austin resident Nancy Thompson, who told Sharon Grigsby of the Dallas Morning News that she has grown tired of Gov. Abbott’s miserable performance on gun violence, on COVID protocols, on abortion rights and the Republican Party’s “general assault on public education and kids.”

She wants to form a movement. Thompson says her Facebook page has more than 50,000 members. Local chapters are forming across Texas.

Grigsby reports that Thompson “describes the group as ordinary Texans fighting for their children’s future. ‘This isn’t about Republican or Democratic families,’ she said. ‘It’s about fighting for what’s right to keep all families safe and healthy.'”

Grigsby said she isn’t willing to wager on MAGA’s effort moving the political needle in Texas, particularly as it regards Abbott’s campaign against Democratic challenger Beto O’Rourke. I believe she is right to hold back on any thought that this MAGA group is going to make any sort of dent in Abbott’s standing.

Whatever, this potential movement appears to be one more chink in the armor that has shielded Abbott and Texas Republicans quite well for the past 30 years.

Read Grisby’s essay here: How one Texas woman’s protest led to Mothers Against Greg Abbott and its viral abortion ad (dallasnews.com)

Grigsby asks: “Does Mothers Against Greg Abbott create a huge shift? Don’t count on it. But does it make a consequential dent? As one mother in its video campaign says, ‘They say nothing changes in Texas politics — until it does.'”

I am hoping for a change.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

State news

Is this Beto’s year?

One of my oldest and dearest friends lives a long way from Texas, but he keeps up with the political winds that are blowing here.

We spoke on the phone this week and he asked whether Beto O’Rourke has a chance of defeating Greg Abbott in the race for Texas governor.

My answer? I don’t know.

I read conflicting polling information. During the course of any given day, I might hear that O’Rourke, the former Democratic congressman from El Paso, “is closing the gap on Abbott.” That kind of reporting gets Democratic activists’ hearts to flutter. Then later on that day I could get a report that suggests that Gov. Abbott is clinging to a comfortable lead over O’Rourke.

The polls that imply a potential O’Rourke upset put the gap between the men at 4 to 6 percentage points. Those that hint at an Abbott re-election place the gap at 6 to 8 points.

Who do I believe? Again, I don’t know.

Here’s what I hope happens, though. I want O’Rourke to break the GOP stranglehold on Texas’s statewide roster of elective offices. It’s been nearly 30 years since a Democrat won election in this state to any statewide office.

I am weary of Abbott’s continually blaming others for the shortcomings in his own policy strategy. He keeps saying that the Biden administration favors an “open border” with Mexico. Open border? Is this guy serious? No. He isn’t. Abbott is a demagogue who — like most right wingers — will say anything to curry favor with the base of his supporters.

The Border Patrol and immigration officials are continuing to round undocumented immigrants every single day.

Abbott still insists on rounding up undocumented immigrants and busing them to Washington. What is happening to them is anyone’s guess. Abbott, though, wants to perform a stunt to make his case.

Meanwhile, the governor refuses to call a special legislative session to enact measures to respond to the Uvalde school massacre.

My friend asked me a question I could not answer intelligently. O’Rourke can win if he can make Abbott’s recent failures a campaign issue. He’s already campaigned statewide — as he did in 2018 against Sen. Ted Cruz — with boundless energy, visiting all 254 counties in Texas.

I just want him to catch his breath, then set out to seemingly defy the laws of physics … which is to be everywhere all at once. Maybe this time it will push O’Rourke over the top.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com