Monthly Archives: October 2020

national news

POTUS affirms decision to ignore him

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I have long held to my assertion that Donald Trump’s words aren’t worth heeding.

He has shown just today that my belief holds water, that Donald Trump isn’t to be heeded on anything.

Trump has contradicted medical experts regarding COVID-19. He mocked Joe Biden for wearing a mask, then came down with the virus. He went home after just 70 hours at Walter Reed Medical Center and I believe he is spreading the disease as we sit here within the White House.

Then he fired off an astonishing Twitter message that ended White House negotiation with congressional Democrats over a possible coronavirus relief package until after the Nov. 3 election.

There you have it. This man is nuts. Donald Trump cannot be trusted to tell the truth; he cannot speak rationally or reasonably. Trump is out of his mind.

It might be the meds he is taking to combat the COVID-19 virus that has infected him. Trump reportedly is taking steroids, which might have affected his judgment.

Be that as it is, I will continue to ignore anything that flies out of Donald Trump’s pie hole.

State news

Should AG Paxton quit?

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Suffice to say that Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton doesn’t have quite the same hold on Texas Republicans as, say, Donald J. Trump.

Consider what has happened since seven top Texas AG’s office aides have alleged that Paxton has engaged in activity that abuses the power of his office, including bribery.

The top dogs in the AG’s office have called for a federal investigation into Paxton’s conduct. Gov. Greg Abbott calls the allegations a “serious matter.”

But then U.S. Rep. Chip Roy, an Austin Republican, has called for Paxton to resign his office. Hit the road, Mr. AG, says Roy. Paxton has responded that he isn’t quitting. He calls the allegations phony and vows to fight them for all he’s worth.

I would prefer that Paxton quit. Not because Rep. Chip Roy says so, but because I also believe the allegations are “serious” and they sound credible to me.

It’s not every day that seven top legal minds put their names on a letter alleging behavior that smacks of outright criminality. One of them is the top aide, Jeff Mateer, who quit the attorney general’s office this past week the moment the letter went public.

There’s also the pending trial that Paxton must endure. He is accused of securities fraud. A Collin County grand jury indicted him in 2015, but years of wrangling over where to hold the trial has delayed justice in this case.

I guess the bottom line is that Paxton should quit the AG’s office. How does a state attorney general serve as the state’s top lawyer with an ounce of credibility when he faces the prospect of a federal investigation into whether he took or offered a bribe? 

national news

Trump: No. 1 threat

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Donald Trump simply couldn’t settle for just being a national security threat by virtue of his behavior regarding the Russians and North Koreans.

Oh, no. He had to become infected with a potentially fatal virus and then flout medical experts’ guidelines and rules about how to conduct himself. He has become a one-man “super spreader” of the disease that is afflicting more than a dozen of his key White House advisers, members of the U.S. Senate, top officers among his military command staff.

Trump returned to the White House on Monday, shucked the mask he was told to wear, stood and offered a stiff salute while gasping for breath, then went into the White House to mingle with staffers and employees. Did he observe “social distancing”? Hah! Not even …

Now he wants to take part in a presidential encounter with the man who appears poised to defeat him Nov. 3, Joe Biden. That will occur on Oct. 15. Maybe!

I am not at all sure it ought to happen, with Biden and Trump standing/sitting on the same stage. Perhaps they could do a “virtual” confrontation, with the adversaries sitting in their own environments. Whatever.

I am simply flabbergasted that Trump continues to offer the happy talk that he “we have done a tremendous job,” that the virus is “under control,” that it will “disappear like a miracle.”

Let me be crystal clear. Donald Trump is not cured of anything. He continues to expose those around him to a potentially fatal disease. He came out of Walter Reed Medical Center prematurely. I do not believe the White House medical staff that expressed “support” for Trump’s decision to leave the hospital; I was struck by the absence of the word “approve” when discussing the decision to exit the medical center.

Trump is a menace. He said he would listen to the medical experts, but hasn’t exhibited any sort of wisdom in heeding his own advice. He is threatening our national security by ignoring the recommendations provided by the medical experts all around him.

He isn’t making America great with his reckless, feckless behavior.

national news

Who’s winning? Who’s losing?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

On a day when Donald Trump decided to quit working with Democrats in Congress over a coronavirus relief package — sending the stock market straight into the dumper — Joe Biden delivered a high-minded speech about unity and our national soul on the site of a revered Civil War battlefield.

One of these fellows is campaigning like a winner; the other is acting like an expected loser.

Hmmm. Who is whom?

It looks to me as though Joe Biden’s decision today to speak to our nation’s better angels without once mentioning Donald Trump’s name is the winner here. Trump? Well, he’s looking more desperate with each passing day.

Does this mean Biden should coast during the campaign’s final 28 days? Hardly. It means only that he took time today to forgo a partisan attack and sought instead to speak to our higher ideals.

As for Trump, he wouldn’t know a higher ideal if it bit him on his ample backside. He has no view of what’s noble or good. He deals in invective and innuendo. He campaigned that way en route to victory in 2016 and has governed that way as president.

Trump decided today that he wouldn’t negotiate with congressional Democrats to find a solution to a coronavirus relief bill; he will talk after the election, he said. To what end is this man refusing to talk to the “other party”?

I cannot or will not predict this presages a Biden victory. Trump, after all, faced grim odds before heading down the stretch four years ago against Hillary Clinton … and then he won!

Oh, but I do hope we are thrashing our way out of the darkness.

local news

Another black life snuffed out

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Here we go … again.

A young black man has died at the hands of a police officer. This time the incident is close to home. It’s just one county over from where I live.

This story is at least as troubling as so many others that have caught the nation’s attention.

The victim in this case is Jonathan Price, 31, a Wolfe City resident. The man who shot him to death is Officer Shaun Lucas, a Wolfe City cop who has been charged with murder.

Price was well-known in his community. He reportedly did good deeds for folks in Hunt County. Indeed, at the time of his death he was seeking to break up a domestic disturbance at a convenience store. The officer who arrived then shot Price as the young man was moving away from the cop.

Another death has now caused immeasurable community grief.

The officer who’s been charged with murder has been placed on administrative leave, which means for the moment he will be paid while he cools his jets awaiting his fate. I’ve never quite understood the term “administrative leave,” nor have I understood how individuals continue to draw their pay while ostensibly being punished for an action that could put them in prison for a very long time.

But that’s how it goes.

I am heartened to know the Texas Rangers have taken over the investigation of this terribly sad case. I want their probe to be thorough and as transparent as it can possibly be.

A Northeast Texas community needs answers.

medical news, national news

Quite the scene, Mr. POTUS

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Well now, that was quite the entrance that Donald J. Trump made last night as he strolled off Marine One and walked into the White House.

He had just been discharged from Walter Reed Medical Center where he had been treated for the COVID-19 virus. He walked into “my house,” came back to the flag-draped balcony and then — against the advice of the docs who treated him for the potentially killer virus — removed his mask and walked back into the White House to mingle with employees and assorted presidential supporters.

Words escape me at this moment.

We witnessed an astonishing display of arrogance from the man who then told us to “not let the virus dominate you.” What the f***?

A nation that has said farewell to more than 210,000 of its residents is now advised to avoid letting the virus get us down? The president needs to have his elaborately coiffed skull examined.

He wants to get back on the campaign trail. He wants to tangle with Democratic nominee Joe Biden in a race he is losing bigly. 

Trump said he gets it, He said he understands how the coronavirus must be treated. Really? Then someone needs to explain why he went through that disgraceful exhibition on the White House balcony.

I will be candid: He doesn’t get sh** about this virus and the danger it poses to Americans or about the grief it has brought to hundreds of thousands of families and friends of its victims.

Meanwhile, Joe Biden continues to observe all the advice handed out by the medical experts. And is it not lost on anyone that Biden’s team of advisers and policy aides has reported zero cases of COVID-19 infection — to date — while Trump’s team is dropping like flies?

I am astounded beyond measure that the president of the United States would care so little about those around him — not to mention the security of our nation — that he would flout the advice given him to stay safe against a disease that could kill him … along with those around him.

national news

Don’t sweat the COVID virus? Huh?

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Donald J. Trump is back in the White House after spending about 70 hours at Walter Reed Medical Center.

He is infected with the coronavirus, the one that’s killing Americans every single day.

His response to the virus? Don’t worry about it, he said upon departing the hospital for the residence at the White House. Don’t worry? Is this man nuts? Don’t answer that. I know what you would say … and I would agree.

Donald Trump will never get it. That much is now as clear as it gets.

He doesn’t harbor an ounce of empathy for those who have lost loved ones to the dreaded virus. Trump doesn’t understand what it means to suffer such grievous loss, which is a tough thing to say about a man whose brother died of alcohol abuse. Still, he says things about not worrying about the coronavirus without grasping how those words fall on the ears of those who are mourning the loss of a loved one who has died from it.

I have said before and I’ll say it again that I am hoping that Trump recovers fully from the disease. I want him to stand for re-election on Nov. 3. I also want him to lose bigly. I want Joe Biden to be elected president.

Why? Donald Trump’s behavior while being holed up at Walter Reed and his comments upon leaving it tell me he cannot lead the nation in this dark pandemic era.

What’s more, I haven’t even mentioned until right now how he shucked the mask upon entering the White House.

Donald Trump needs to go.

national news

Two thoughts on next ‘debate’

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

If Joe Biden and Donald Trump are going to “debate” each other next week, I want to stipulate two things that I believe must occur.

One is that the presidential candidates and the medical teams have to assure us that everyone within any distance at all will be safe from the COVID virus that has afflicted the POTUS. Nothing short of that will suffice. I mean, the virus is still infecting and killing thousands of Americans every day.

Second, if the next encounter resembles the first one, I want no part of it. A second shout fest — with Trump doing almost all of the interrupting and badgering — will do nothing to advance the cause of civil debate. It would be a waste of my time. I don’t know about you but I didn’t hear anything new during that first so-called “debate.”

Trump is resisting calls to change the format. Fine. Let him resist and then let the public see what a fool we have seeking re-election to a second term as president of the United States.