Category Archives: International news

International news

Andrew gets defrocked

It looks for all the world as though we could be watching a one-time prominent member of the world’s pre-eminent royal family being excommunicated in real time, sent to the proverbial woodshed and given a public battering from his mother, her Majesty the Queen of England.

Queen Elizabeth II has stripped Prince Andrew, her second-oldest son, of his military rank and removed him from all his charitable causes. This is in reaction to the stunning news of his alleged involvement with an underage girl who claims Andrew had sex with her “multiple times” while she was being, um, “handled” by a notorious sex trafficker, the late Jeffrey Epstein.

I have no way on Earth in knowing what’s going through Her Majesty’s mind about this, but my gut and my trick knee tell me her decision to bust Andrew of his military standing and take his charitable causes away is based on her belief in the allegations that have been leveled against her son.

The end game? He’s likely done as a working member of Great Britain’s royal family. I doubt seriously at this moment that we’re going to see Prince Andrew attending any public functions involving the royals … ever again!

What lies ahead for the fallen prince? He is being sued by Epstein’s victim. He could challenge the lawsuit and possibly lose. Or he could settle out of court, which to my way of thinking is an admission of some level of guilt.

Either way, Andrew is likely finished.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news, International news

Hey, Andrew … so long!

As a general rule I don’t normally give a rat’s rear end about Britain’s royal family, but this growing awareness of one of the royals’ involvement with a convicted sex predator has me curious and wondering whether he is ever going to redeem what is left of his shattered reputation.

Stand up, Prince Andrew. I am talking about you!

Andrew is a reported friend of Ghislaine Maxwell, the former girlfriend of the late predator Jeffrey Epstein. A jury found Maxwell guilty of multiple counts of sex trafficking. Jurors believed the testimony of young women who said that Maxwell conned them into sexual encounters involving Epstein when they were underage girls.

Epstein strung himself up in a New York City jail cell in 2019. Maxwell is about to pay a steep price for her involvement with him; but what about her involvement with Andrew?

Another woman has come forward to allege that she and Andrew had sex multiple times when she, too, was a girl. Andrew denies it. Sort of. He said he didn’t have a “sexual encounter.” Does that deny any form of intimacy? Hmm. Maybe not.

The royal family has pushed Queen’s second-oldest son aside. He is taking no part in any public activities involving the royals. My hunch — and that’s all I have — is that Her Majesty the Queen and those closest to her believe the worst about the heir to the throne.

I get that the world maintains a fascination with the British royal family. Andrew has been in full public view his entire life. Now, though, the world is seeing another side of Prince Andrew’s alleged former life.

It ain’t pretty.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

International news

Anti-immigrant rhetoric has been around

For as long as I can recall, the talk we hear about closing our borders to immigrants has been an ongoing topic of discussion, debate and demagoguery.

I can recall writing a column for the Beaumont Enterprise in the 1980s about those who wanted to slam the door shut on immigration. Hey, they got in, or their ancestors got into the country. Now that they were citizens of the world’s greatest nation, let’s just slam the door shut. Toss the key. Build a moat; fill it with filthy water and gators.

The anti-immigrant rhetoric isn’t uniquely American, either. Europeans from east to west, north to south have been yammering for decades about the unwashed masses pouring into their countries from, say, the Middle East. Political parties in Europe have emerged to challenge the status quo.

Let us not forget, too, that Europe gave the world the National Socialist Party — aka the Nazis. Their aim was to promote the “master race” and rid the world of people who worshiped the Jewish faith.

Today, though, the anti-immigrants have many more media weapons at their disposal to spew their rubbish. They contend that non-native-born Americans are “invading” the country, that they are going to push us native-born Americans out of the way. What nonsense. There cannot possibly be a more un-American policy than that. The government we honor today was created by individuals are the direct descendants of those who “invaded” the country in the 17th century. We are a nation built by immigrants. Thus, for our founders’ descendants to seek to ban more immigrants borders on treason … in my humble view.

Perhaps in a perverse and perverted way, that the anti-immigrant rhetoric would be gathering steam these days is merely a continuation of a scourge with which our nation has been dealing all along.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

International news

Tutu’s legacy towers over world

“Do your little bit of good where you are; it’s those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.”

― Desmond Tutu

The great man did many “little bits of good” that indeed overwhelmed the world. Desmond Tutu died today at age 90.

He was arguably the world’s pre-eminent foe of the oppressive regime that kept most of South Africa’s population in a form of bondage. He fought to free the nation’s black majority of the apartheid philosophy that had governed that country since its founding.

He was an Anglican priest who embodied the kind of peaceful resistance that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. made famous in this country.

The great man retired from public life in 2010, but his legacy as a champion for freedom for most of those who lived in South Africa was well-established. He stood alongside the great Nelson Mandela to lead his country out of its oppression to a new era of enlightenment and freedom.

Desmond Tutu did not need to do one great thing to “overwhelm the world.” He lived by the thought he expressed. He was a champion.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

education news, International news

No debate on Holocaust

The dust-up that erupted the other day over that North Texas public educator/nitwit who suggested that teachers ought to provide “opposing views” on the Holocaust has brought to mind this thought: Just who out there actually espouses any doubt over what occurred during World War II?

I know the answer: It’s the right-wing crackpot wing of the great divide.

Gina Peddy is a director of curriculum for the Carroll Independent School District. She was overheard telling teachers that they need to provide instruction that includes those who might question whether the Holocaust actually happened.

Well … it did. It happened. Adolf Hitler and his Nazi henchmen sought to eliminate Jews from Europe. They killed as many as 7 million Jews during World War II.

There is no legitimate “opposing view” to the historical fact of what occurred.

Peddy’s employers at Carroll ISD were quick to disavow what was overheard in that teachers’ meeting. I don’t know what they’re going to do about Peddy and whether she should stay employed by the district. That is their call; my own view is that she needs to go.

As for any serious denial of what transpired at Hitler’s grimy hands, there isn’t any to be discussed.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

International news, national news, State news

Our border isn’t ‘open’

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How many times do I have to say this: We do not have “open borders’? 

That is the mantra being recited time and again by far right wing opponents of President Biden, who continue to insist that our borders — particularly our southern border — have been flung wide open for anyone to pour into the country.

Let’s review what just happened along the border with Mexico near Del Rio, Texas.

Thousands of Haitians congregated under an international bridge. They were fleeing corruption in their country as well as fleeing the destruction brought by a killer earthquake.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott deployed Department of Public Safety officers to the border to assist Customs and Border Patrol agents in managing the chaotic scene. U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials were on it, too.

Now the crowd is gone. The migrants have been sent back to Haiti, sent to third countries or are being processed to achieve legal immigrant status.

Is that a signal that we have an “open border”? No. It isn’t!

Our borders are no more “open” than they have been during the terms of Donald Trump, Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush, Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter … I’ll stop there.

Yet the critics of Joe Biden seize on the chaos brought forth and are offering the canard about “open borders” as a weapon to use against him. One of those critics, former Housing Secretary Ben Carson, writes in Newsweek, “We are encountering more people at our southern border than any other time in the last 21 years. Two months in a row, the numbers exceeded 200,000; in August 2021, the numbers represented a 317 percent increase over August of last year.”

Biden Has Effectively Opened Our Border. He Is Once Again Vindicating Trump | Opinion (msn.com)

OK, Dr. Carson. How are they responding to that influx? We aren’t just letting ’em pour in, doc! Get a grip here.

Yes, the Biden team needs to do better. Yes, they need to make their response more efficient. And, yes, we cannot tolerate the sight of mounted CBP officers herding Haitians like cattle as they seek shelter from the misery they are fleeing.

However, the border isn’t “open.”

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

International news

Biden seeks to reassure allies, warn foes

Joseph R. Biden Jr. stood before the United Nations today and delivered the kind of speech Americans — and those around the world — hadn’t heard delivered from a U.S. president in some time.

He spoke of diplomacy, of global warming, of human rights, of an end to U.S. warfare. President Biden delivered a reasoned, rationale, coherent speech to the U.N. General Assembly that was devoid of name-calling — such as “Little Rocket Man” — and some of the curious statements that would fly out of the mouth of Biden’s presidential predecessor.

To be sure, the current president has a heaping plate full of trouble. We have a refugee crisis on our southern border. We are still trying to finish extricating ourselves fully from Afghanistan. The nation is battling a COVID-19 pandemic that many of us thought was whipped four months ago.

To hear the president’s tone, though, in a speech to the world’s No. 1 diplomatic body seems to signal a return to normal diplomatic procedure, the kind of thing he promised when he ran for president in 2020.

Yes, President Biden is struggling at home. The political forces that keep digging in against him are fierce, determined and dogged in their effort to torpedo everything the wants to do.

However, I remain determined to offer my support in the efforts this president is making to repair the wreckage left by his predecessor.

Today’s speech at the U.N. took us another step toward that end.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

International news

Biden gets blame for this, too?

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President Biden no doubt knew he was jumping into a briar patch when he decided to seek the presidency in 2020.

Now he’s getting pilloried for something he couldn’t possibly control, which is the flood of refugees from Haiti; they are congregating on the U.S. border near Del Rio, Texas. The United States is sending thousands of them back to Haiti.

Wait, though, for the criticism that is going to come flowing toward the Biden administration.

Why didn’t they anticipate this flood of immigrants? Why are they being mistreated by border and immigration officers? How can they allow this monumental tragedy unfold?

I will continue to stand with the president as he seeks to deal with this newest crisis on our border.

Haitians are fleeing their country, which was torn apart with the assassination of its president. Then came that killer earthquake. I guess one would want out of a nation with no stable government, let alone a stable infrastructure to withstand Earth’s awesome power.

Where do they go? To the U.S. of A.!

“We are very concerned that Haitians who are taking this irregular migration path are receiving false information that the border is open or the temporary protected status is available,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said. “I want to make sure that it is known that this is not the way to come to the United States.”

Border patrol criticized for treatment of Haitian migrants in Del Rio | The Texas Tribune

President Biden is getting pilloried, pounded and pummeled these days for the crisis that erupted virtually without warning. How in the world does one prepare for such a monstrous development?

Joe Biden sought the presidency twice before finally winning the office in 2020. He has been involved with politics long enough — seemingly since The Flood — to know that the realm is fraught with peril. I spent the previous four years lamenting the fecklessness of a president who didn’t listen to any of the advisers with whom he surrounded himself. He sought to live up to the mindless boast that “I, alone can fix” whatever problems arose.

President Biden isn’t wired that way. He has surrounded himself with critical thinkers and individuals seasoned in the nuanced world of international relations.

They all have a huge problem on their hands at the moment. They need to find a solution quickly. If they fail, then they will deserve the pounding they are sure to receive.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

International news

Afghanistan: Will it get better?

A young friend of ours came over this afternoon to wish us a happy 50th anniversary.

We sat in the living room and he turned back to face me and asked: What do you think about Afghanistan?  He meant the withdrawal, of course, which he described as a “mess.”

I didn’t know quite how to respond. I did not — I do not still — want to offend our young neighbor; he is too sweet of a young man and I don’t want to end up on his “bad side.”

All I could come up with was that the commander in chief, President Biden, had no choice but to end a war that had dragged on for two decades. “To what end does he stay in the fight?” I asked. I reminded our young friend that we had fought there for more than two decades. Do they keep fighting?

My friend smiled. We both changed the subject.

The inglorious end to an inglorious war is bound to bring friends to a rhetorical dead end when the subject comes up. My young friend and I agreed that it will take time for this post-Afghan War period to sort itself out.

I will continue to hope for the best outcome, which I hope means we can keep our eyes and ears dialed in to the nth degree and listen and look for any signs of trouble from the Taliban or any terrorist organization that seeks to do us harm.

My hope, then, is that we keep the drones armed and ready to strike.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

International news

Putin has it right, strange as that seems

Leave it to Russian strongman/dictator/killer Vladimir Putin to put our Afghan War effort into some sort of semi-reasonable and rational perspective.

“The result is one tragedy, one loss… American troops were present in this region, and for twenty years they tried to civilize people, and to introduce their own norms and standards of life in the broadest sense… including in the political organization of society,” Putin said. “The result is zero, if not to say that it is negative.”

He should know. Putin was a big-time spymaster while Russia was known as the Soviet Union, and during the time the Soviet Union sent troops into Afghanistan to seek to defeat those who opposed the Marxist regime that ran the country in the1980s.

Putin: U.S. Has Nothing, “Zilch” To Show For 20 Years Of Occupation Of Afghanistan | Video | RealClearPolitics

The communists fared no better than our forces did during the 20 years Americans fought there.

Which to my way of thinking tells me that President Biden made the right call when he ended our military engagement.

Hmm. Imagine that. President Biden and Vlad Putin agreeing on something. Who knew?

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com