Category Archives: State news

legal news, local news, political news, State news

Justice isn’t partisan

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

A series of political signs caught my eye recently while driving along Lucas Avenue just east of Allen in Collin County, Texas.

“Keep Your Republican Judges” the signs blurt out.

The signs bring to mind a question I used to ask Texas judicial candidates while I was working for a living as a newspaper editor.

“Can you tell me the difference,” I would ask, “between Democratic justice and Republican justice?” The answer from judges and judicial candidates in either party was essentially the same. They couldn’t differentiate between the parties.

That brings me to a point I have been harping on since The Flood, which is that if Texas is going to keep electing its judges it needs to remove the partisan label from these races.

I have more or less given up on the notion of appointing judges and then having them stand for “retention” at the ballot box. Texas seems wedded to the notion of electing judges, which we do at all manner of levels: justices of the peace, to county court at law judges, to district judges, to appellate court judges, to the Court of Criminal Appeals and to the Texas Supreme Court.

They all run either as Democrats or Republicans. Depending on the relative strength of either party at the time, we have tossed out fine judges from the weaker of the two parties.

As late as the early 1980s, when Democrats remained strong in Texas, fine GOP judges got the boot. Then the tide turned and Texans began tossing out fine Democratic judges in favor of GOP judges. Why? Because they were of the party in power.

It doesn’t make sense to me.

Judges who adjudicate criminal and civil cases do not deliver justice on the basis of partisan leaning. Appellate judges, be they sitting on regional appellate benches or on the state’s top two appellate courts — the CCA or the Supreme Court — do not interpret the Texas Constitution on a partisan level.

I can understand selecting judges based on their judicial philosophy. If they are too soft or too harsh in their judgments, then allow voters to make their selection on that basis.

Partisan labels don’t belong in our state’s judicial contests.

local news, State news

Vote early … or else?

(Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I truly cannot believe I am saying this, but the decision we have made in our house to vote early is beginning to look more attractive with each passing day.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott made the decision even more righteous by deciding to limit hand-delivered absentee drop boxes to one per county. That’s one place to drop off your ballots no matter whether you live in a small rural county or a large urban one. My wife and I reside in Collin County, home to 1 million Texans.

Let’s see how this works. Democrats blame the Republican governor of employing voter-suppression tactics by issuing such a restrictive order.

The Texas Tribune reports: Voting rights advocates say Abbott’s move will make absentee balloting more difficult in a year when more Texans than ever are expected to vote by mail. Drop-off locations, advocates said, are particularly important given concerns about Postal Service delays, especially for disabled voters or those without access to reliable transportation.

… Abbott described his proclamation as an effort to “strengthen ballot security protocols throughout the state.” A spokesperson did not respond to questions about how allowing multiple drop-off locations might lead to fraud.

The USPS has come under intense scrutiny over the way it plans to handle a huge spike in mail-in voting in this pandemic age.

My wife and I intend to vote early in person at one of the polling locations set aside here in Collin County. We might vote at the Allen Event Center, which is a sizable venue that provides ample space for us to “socially distance.” Or we might vote at First Baptist Church in Princeton, where we’ve voted in earlier elections. We were impressed with how well the poll workers kept us safe during that election, so we might stay close to home to cast our ballots.

I would have preferred to wait until Election Day to cast my ballot. I now will heed the plea offered by Joe Biden and others in his camp who urge Americans to vote early. Vote “in person” if we can. Well, we can vote in person so we will do that and we will do so early.

I want my vote to count. I suppose, furthermore, that perhaps Donald Trump has sown enough suspicion in my own mind and heart about the Postal Service to make sure I vote in person at the earliest possible moment.

State news

Candidate touts military heroics?

(AP Photo/Eric Gay)

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I’ve been stewing about this ever since I saw the ad the first time a couple of weeks ago, so now I will vent just a bit.

M.J. Hegar is running for the U.S. Senate in Texas occupied by John Cornyn. She defeated state Sen. Royce West of Dallas in a Democratic Party primary runoff for the right to challenge the Republican incumbent.

But I think she’s treading into an off-putting campaign strategy, one in which she seems to boast about her own military service in Afghanistan. She talks about her time as an Air Force helicopter pilot, about being shot down and then kind of crows about being awarded a Silver Star and Purple Heart for her actions on the battlefield.

I don’t begrudge Hegar’s service. I honor it and I respect it greatly. I do, though, believe it is unbecoming for her to seemingly boast about her service in a paid political ad. That is the kind of commentary that should be left for others to say on her behalf. Those who perform heroically in combat customarily are reluctant to talk about such deeds.

Yes, other political candidates have run for office after serving with valor and heroism on the battlefield. I don’t recall hearing them — speaking in their own voice — seemingly boast about it.

I don’t believe I am alone in feeling this way.

Bad call, Ms. Hegar.

local news, State news

Puppy Tales, Part 87: Earning his spurs

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

TYLER STATE PARK, Texas — You know by now that Toby the Puppy is nearly perfect … if not actually perfect.

One of the aspects of his perfection is that he barks only for a reason. He doesn’t just yip and yap at nothing or nobody. Hardly. He barks when people approach our RV, or our house when we’re at home. He knows when one of us is away from the house and when we return that he doesn’t need to bark; Toby the Puppy simply assumes it’s either his Mother or me.

OK, that all laid out there, here’s a tale of how he put his bigger than expected bark to good use.

We were parked at Tyler State Park. We noticed a raccoon walking through our area. We watched as the ‘coon walked up to an RV a few spaces away from ours. This all happened just before dusk.

Then the sun went down and, without warning — and it was startling to hear — Toby the Puppy went absolutely ballistic. He barked, he snarled, he made noises that we had never heard him make. He was looking out the door of our RV into the dark.

I grabbed a flashlight and looked everywhere in our camp site at what might have caused Toby to go berserk. I found nothing. Then it occurred to me: Toby the Puppy scared that raccoon away!

I cannot prove that the raccoon ventured into our site that evening. I am left only with circumstantial evidence. We saw with our own eyes the raccoon snooping around our neighbor’s rig. Then it got dark and our pooch began snarling at a mystery object outside.

Two plus two does equal four, yes?

There you have it. Toby the Puppy has earned his keep as a supreme watchdog.

State news

Abbott wants to take over Austin PD?

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott seems to have been taken in by Donald Trump’s penchant for authoritarian rule.

Abbott is considering whether to send in the Department of Public Safety to take over police duties from the Austin Police Department. What prompted this bit of heavy-handedness? The Austin City Council has voted to take a good bit of money away from Austin PD, which has enraged Abbott to the point of seeking permission to send in the state cops to do the city cops’ work.

This would be a serious overreach from the governor’s office into city hall’s purview.

Abbott, of course, cannot do this all by himself. He needs the Legislature to step in. How does he do that? Does he call a special legislative session, which would cost the state even more money it doesn’t have in the wake of the COVID crisis?

According to the Texas Tribune: “This proposal for the state to takeover the Austin Police Department is one strategy I’m looking at,” Abbott tweeted. “We can’t let Austin’s defunding & disrespect for law enforcement to endanger the public & invite chaos like in Portland and Seattle.”

I want to be clear on this point: I disagree with the city’s decision to defund its police department. I think police “reform” can occur without taking money away from departments such as the one in Austin. Thus, I am dismayed at the entire “defund the police” movement that has taken root in many communities across the nation.

I believe some police departments need a serious retooling of their procedures and policies. I mean, shooting someone in the back seven times while he is fleeing an officer suggests to me a serious breakdown in effective law enforcement. And don’t get me started on the George Floyd murder in Minneapolis.

I also disagree, though, with the governor’s reaction to what is a local funding decision. It might be that since the governor resides in Austin, given that it’s the state capital city, that he is taking the defunding issue personally. If that is the case, then he needs to get over himself.

The Texas Legislature and the governor need to allow Austin to wrestle through this issue. If the city council has made the wrong decision to defund the police department, Austin voters can take matters into their own hands.

I believe that’s what they mean when they refer to “local control.”

State news

Wanting two parties to fight it out

I want Texas to become a two-party state.

It’s not enough to be dominated by a single political party. Not even the Democratic Party, which used to control everything in sight dating back to the period after the Civil War. They held onto power like a vise until the 1970s, when Republicans began picking off statewide elective offices and then started winning local races where Democrats once reigned supreme.

Now it’s all Republican all the time.

Democrats keep yapping about the next election cycle when they’ll turn the corner, when they’ll start winning back some of those seats. It hasn’t happened … yet!

Is this the year? Is this when Texas Democrats can start regaining some of the clout they gave away when the party leadership veered too far to the left to suit many millions of Texans?

We’ll have to wait. And see. And hope.

Why is a two-party state preferable to a one-party juggernaut? This comes from my own point of view, given that I consider myself to be a moderate, center-left Democratic-leaning voter.

Two viable political parties make them both more alert, more receptive to compromise, tacking more toward the middle. That has been the case in Texas, at least during my more than 36 years living here while reporting and commenting on Texas public policy.

My definition of good government combines the best of both major parties. It also compels them to work with each other, not against each other.

We have in Texas a Donald Trump version of the Republican Party, which is to say that it doesn’t hue to traditional GOP partisan principles. Low taxes? Government fiscal responsibility? Internationalism?

The Texas GOP follows Trump down some version of the Yellow Brick Road to, well, nowhere in particular. Meanwhile, Texas Democrats see this as their best opportunity to pick off a few GOP posts, playing to the anger and perhaps some disappointment among rank-and-file Texas Republicans. Take my word for it, there are a number of them out there wincing, grimacing and gnashing their teeth over the way Donald Trump has chosen to lead the nation.

Might all of this pave the way for a return to competitive political environment? My hope springs eternal.

local news, State news

Time to put country ahead of party

This is no great flash, but I want to share with you a conversation I had recently with a prominent West Texas politician.

I won’t divulge his name because he doesn’t know I am going public with this exchange. So, bear with me.

My friend is a Republican through and through. He also happens to believe that Donald J. “Republican In Name Only in Chief” Trump needs to lose the November presidential election.

Trump is a disaster, according to my friend. He has led the country since the very beginning of his time as president down the wrong path. I didn’t ask my friend this, but I should have asked him whether he considers Trump to be a real Republican or just someone who wears a partisan political label for reasons only he knows.

I told my friend that he was “preaching to the choir” in expressing his view of Donald Trump. What I didn’t tell him — but wish I would have done so — was that he needs to take his concerns to the public. He needs to say what he told me out loud, in the proverbial public square.

My friend needs to speak from the heart, tell his West Texas constituents — who likely are going to vote one more time for the carnival barker — that they would make the gravest mistake possible. They shouldn’t endorse Trump’s re-election.

Does this individual need to serve in the office he now serves? Oh, probably not. He is a man of means who doesn’t need the publicly funded salary he draws. Thus, this is my way of saying he shouldn’t care whether he angers his constituents enough for them to vote him out of office.

My friend is far from the only Republican officeholder who carries that belief about Donald Trump. I haven’t spoken to many of them. I just know that others are out there who share my friend’s belief that we cannot afford another four years of Donald Trump.

My friend is a patriot. He loves this country. It’s time for him to demonstrate his love of country by telling the world what he told me.

local news, State news

Biden showing strength in Texas? Hmm … still looking for it

2 Comments

Let me be clear that the observation I am about to offer is purely anecdotal and based only on what my wife and I have observed up close while traveling through Texas.

It is that I am having a bit of difficulty understanding how the public opinion polls released lately can show Joe Biden tied with or leading Donald J. Trump in the race for president of the United States of America.

My observation is based on the absence of any Biden signs showing support for the presumed Democratic presidential nominee. Trump, meanwhile, enjoys at least a smidgen of lawn sign support that we have seen as we motored our way south from the Metroplex and into the Hill Country.

Before you climb all over me, chewing me up one side and down the other, I want to stipulate that I understand that lawn signs comprise a fleeting indicator public opinion. There’s nothing scientific about this observation. However, I try to add 2 plus 2; it still comes up 4. Biden’s reported Texas support, based on polling results, doesn’t seem to add up, based only on what I have noticed with my own eyes.

There might be a hidden Biden vote, one that keeps people from exhibiting their support in a visible fashion. You hear a bit these days about vandalism committed on those with certain political leanings. There also are reports of Trumpkins being a bit more, um, vehement in support of their guy.

I want to believe the public opinion polling that suggests a Trump-Biden contest in Texas is going to be a highly competitive contest. It fills me with hope that Trump will spend money in this state that he might otherwise spend in a more traditional “battleground” state.

We’ll keep traveling around the state. I also will keep my eyes peeled for signs — no pun intended — of Joe Biden strength in Texas. I remain hopeful it’s out there … somewhere.

national news, State news

Is there a lesson to be learned?

The news that U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Loony Bin, has tested positive for the coronavirus ought to send a clear message to the moronic conspiracy theorists out there who joined Gohmert in dismissing the value of mask wearing.

The Texas Republican had visibly and vocally eschewed wearing a mask, calling masks overrated as a preventative measure against the pandemic. Then he tests positive. Gohmert is now isolating himself in his East Texas home.

Will this clown’s infection stem the naysayers? Will it shut them up? Hardly. These idiots keep yapping about masks being part of some sort of nefarious conspiracy concocted by someone, or some organization, perhaps the Deep State designed to rule the world … or some such moronic tripe.

Gohmert is the unofficial chairman of the Wacko Caucus within the Republican congressional delegation. His initial response, I hasten to add, is that he now will wear a mask “religiously.” He says he feels fine. That’s good. Really, it is. I don’t want him to suffer.

According to CNN.com: “I will not be around anybody for the next 10 days without making sure that I have a mask,” Gohmert said. “Because that’s the real danger. Once you have it, giving it to somebody else, and that’s when a mask if most important.”

I do want his positive test result to send a chilling message to his fellow pandemic goofballs to listen to the docs, who tell us to wear masks and to stay the hell away from everyone else.

Oh, have I mentioned that we passed the 150,000 death count in this pandemic battle? There. I just did.

This is serious stuff, folks. Just ask Louie Gohmert.

medical news, State news

Mother Nature deals cruel blow

Mother Nature can be the cruelest of elements.

Our friends and fellow Texans in Nueces County have been struggling against the COVID-19 virus. Reports of a spike in infections among infants has been particularly alarming. They’re running out of morgue space and are receiving refrigerated trucks to store the remains of those who have died from the virus. Good grief.

Then comes Hurricane Hanna, which blasted ashore south of Corpus Christi on Saturday. It was a Cat 1 storm, which isn’t catastrophic by definition … but it might as well have been a Cat 5 or worse, given the heartache that has struck that part of the state.

I am left while sitting up yonder in North Texas to offer my sympathy, condolences and, yes, “thoughts and prayers” to those who suffer from the pandemic and now to those who are battling storm surge, flash flooding and 100-mph wind.

What’s more, we should lift up first responders and the medical professionals who have been risking their health, their lives and those of their loved ones even before Hanna blew down the front door along the Gulf Coast.

Will any of this ever end? Can we get some help from our government and, by all means, from Mother Nature herself?