Monthly Archives: February 2021

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President for ‘all Americans’

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

President Biden’s campaign pledge to be “president for all Americans, not just those who voted” for him sprang to mind as he made a major disaster declaration for Texas.

Why is that a big — or even a medium deal? It’s because his predecessor at times politicized these decisions, taking aim at officials in states that didn’t vote for him in the 2016 election; the California wildfire disaster comes immediately to mind.

Biden approves major disaster declaration for Texas: FEMA (msn.com)

President Biden has told the Federal Emergency Management Agency to pull out all the stops to help Texas recover from the monstrous winter blast that knocked power out for millions of Texans and continues to cause major water-quality problems for thousands of us.

It’s interesting, too, that the White House has been working closely and feverishly with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican who was one of those who refused to recognize initially that Joe Biden, a card-carrying Democrat, was really and truly elected president in 2020.

None of that matters one damn bit … not to Gov. Abbott now or to the president.

Presidents do govern the entire country and must answer to all Americans. They also must set aside partisan differences when Americans are suffering.

As the saying goes: We live in the United States of America.

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Take a bow, media

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

The national media, which a prominent — and now thoroughly disgraced — U.S. politician once labeled “the enemy of the people,” have demonstrated time and time again their value to contemporary society.

How do I know that? Because the media have been reporting in agonizing — and, yes, uplifting — detail the experiences we have been enduring during the Deep Freeze of 2021.

It’s good to take a moment to ponder how the media have reported the good as well as the bad associated with the storm that paralyzed much of the nation, most notably the damage it did in Texas.

I also want to salute the subjects of many of the stories chronicled by the media, specifically the Good Samaritans who have answered the call to help their neighbors, family members and even total strangers who have suffered from power outages, burst household plumbing and the assorted miseries that accompany all of that.

They have raised money, transported food, delivered potable water, provided shelter or just offered a word of comfort and encouragement. I know that because the media have told their stories.

It’s been difficult at times to smile during this trying experience. Yet I have managed to shed a tear or two of joy at what I have been told is happening in Texas and across the land during this severe winter event.

Oh, and then there’s this: This tragedy struck many of us while the nation and the world battle the killer pandemic and that story, too, has produced more reason to smile. Yes, people are still getting sick and still are dying, but the vaccines have arrived and are getting injected into our bodies. The infection rate, at least for the time being, appears to be spiraling downward. 

The media are telling us that story as well.

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‘America is back’

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

President Biden has made it abundantly clear that the nation he was elected to lead is going to return to the world stage.

There will no more talk of “putting America first” at the expense of our nation’s international alliances.

Biden spoke to his fellow G7 leaders this week during a virtual conference and informed them in no uncertain terms that he intends to reverse the direction that his presidential predecessor intended to take the nation.

The nation has rejoined the Paris Climate Accord; the U.S.A. is re-engaging in negotiations with Iran with the aim of preventing the Islamic Republic from obtaining a nuclear weapon; he has affirmed out commitment to NATO; he also has put Russia on notice that he won’t be “pals” with that nation’s strongman leader.

Donald Trump sought to stiff our allies whenever and wherever possible. Joe Biden is not wired that way. He intends to demonstrate his understanding that the world is figuratively shrinking and that the United States intends to reassert its role as the world’s pre-eminent world power.

This is what presidents of the United States have done for the past 100 years. I am one American who supports the tone that President Biden is taking.

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I love being a statistic

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

OK, I am just a number, but I welcome it.

I happen to be one of the 15 million or so Americans who’s been completely vaccinated against the COVID-19 pandemic. My bride will join me in that category of Americans in just one week.

What I want to report is that today’s second dose of the vaccine was done with a fraction of the anxiety of the first one. How is that? No lines, man!

We drove again from Princeton, Texas south along U.S. Highway 75, through Dallas and ended up once again at the North Texas VA Medical Center. We parked our truck and walked in.

I peered down the hall, looking for a line of veterans waiting to get vaccinated. There were none there! Huh? The nasty weather might have kept some folks from making the trip to the VA center. A VA staffer told me the morning crowd was much larger. Whatever. I guess I am the master of impeccable timing.

I checked in and then was ushered immediately into the large room with 20-something booths where vets were receiving their vaccines.

The nurse peppered with a few questions about my health at the moment. I answered them correctly, I got the shot in the arm, walked into a waiting room for the obligatory 15-minute post-vaccine observation period and then walked out. My wife and piled into our truck and returned home.

In and out in, oh, 22 minutes!

Wow! I will sing the praises once more for the service I receive from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. The VA came through for me when I needed it. I expect the same kind of treatment for my bride when she reports for her second vaccine provided by Collin County’s Health Department.

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It’s all about Cruz’s mouth

(AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Do you want to know why this kerfuffle over Ted Cruz’s aborted vacation in Cancun is gaining such traction?

I am going to tell you anyway, even if you don’t care one little bit?

The Republican U.S. senator from Texas has taken great pains to blast the daylights out of other politicians — chiefly Democrats — who take vacations at inopportune times.

Thus, it is Cruz’s mouth that has gotten him into trouble.

Cruz jetted off from Houston to vacation with his wife and daughters at the very time Texas is struggling to recover from serious Arctic blast that resulted in millions of Texans losing electrical power, natural gas to heat their homes or water to drink.

He tried to pawn it off on his daughters, whose schools were closed because of the weather. They asked Mom and Dad if they could go somewhere warm. Sen. Cruz and Heidi Cruz obliged. The family took off for Cancun. Then the fecal matter hit the fan.

Cruz then  returned home. To his credit (I reckon), he has apologized for messing up. Still, the story will be tough to kill and bury. Why? Because the junior senator from Texas has made a nagging habit of sounding sanctimonious as it regards politicians’ working and vacation habits.

He tore Austin Mayor Steve Adler a new one in December because Adler vacationed in Cabo San Lucas while the city he governs was struggling with the pandemic. Cruz is on record saying that Congress shouldn’t take vacations when there is so much damn work to be done. They should just work, work, work until the job is finished, he has said.

So what does the Cruz Missile do now? He wants to be a good parent and leave the country — not just the state — while Texans are suffering grievously.

As the saying goes, “Words have consequences.” Those words carry a particular consequence when a politician who utters them intones a high degree of self-righteousness while castigating others … and then does the very thing he condemns.

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Confirm a new AG, now!

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Hey, this message goes to U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Richard Durbin.

We have a distinguished legal genius waiting to be confirmed as U.S. attorney general. Merrick Garland got the nod from President Biden to lead the Justice Department. The former chairman of the Judiciary panel, Republican Lindsey Graham, decided — no surprise there! — to drag his feet on a confirmation hearing.

Well, Graham has surrendered the gavel to the Democrat Durbin.

We’ve got some judicial/legal matters that need a full DOJ complement of officials on board. That begins with the attorney general.

The hate crimes being committed against Asian-Americans comes to mind right away. Donald Trump seemed to take great glee in referring to the pandemic as the “China virus” and called it the “kung flu.” One consequence of that has been a rash of crimes committed against Asian-Americans.

Garland vows to take aim at hate crimes of all types.

He needs to be installed as attorney general. This man, nominated by former President Obama to the Supreme Court after Justice Antonin Scalia’s death in early 2016, was denied a hearing by the Senate; so he went back to work as a judge on the D.C. circuit court.

Now he’s agreed to become attorney general. The task now rests with the Senate to confirm him.

Get busy, Chairman Durbin.

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Time to look ahead … post-Winter Storm of 2021

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Is it too early to start crafting after-action reports on what the hell just happened to us in Texas?

Not at all!

We got hit with a storm that might make some folks in, say, Fairbanks, Duluth or Buffalo chuckle. They’re use to the kind of weather we’ve endured. It gets even worse in those places, but dang, man … we aren’t accustomed to this. And it showed in our utility companies’ response to it.

I have been prowling this planet for 71 years and I do not recall ever going without power or water for the length of time we did in Princeton, Texas. I grew up in Portland, Ore., where it rains a good bit and occasionally gets pounded with snow. My career took my family and me eventually to Amarillo, Texas, where it gets mighty cold and where it does snow — often a lot at one time.

We were unprepared for what happened. I hear now that the outfit that manages 90 percent of Texas’s utilities — ERCOT — has said we were “minutes away” from a total collapse of the electrical grid during the worst of the storm.

Total collapse? What the hell does that mean?

Utility companies shut down production capacity ostensibly to save energy while the Arctic blast blew in over Texas. Where I come from, they call it a “clusterf***,” which it was.

We heard reports of production stations lacking proper winterization. Natural gas pumps froze. Wind turbines, too, were rendered useless in the cold.

There needs to be a top-to-bottom — and back to the top — review of what happened here. There also needs to be action plans developed to prevent it from recurring when the next monstrous storm decides to descend on Texas, which is full of good folks who seem to believe they live in an indestructible state.

Mother Nature has told us otherwise. She issued a dire warning that we are vulnerable to nature’s wrath, which came our way in a form that is foreign to millions of us. Hurricanes blow in from the Gulf of Mexico. We can get pretty damn hot in the summer. The rain at times fails to dampen our land. Yes, we are a sturdy bunch here in Texas, as the Dust Bowl proved in the 1930s, even as it wiped out West Texas families.

Always time to thank first responders | High Plains Blogger

It’s time, though, to examine carefully what happened to our electrical infrastructure and make sure we do not repeat what could have been an even more tragic event.

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Welcome them, however …

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

President Biden said he is wants to “go big” on an immigration reform proposal for Congress to consider.

I agree with him, but with an important caveat. I want there to be strict border security and enforcement of immigrant-entry rules for those seeking to come to the United States.

The president has unveiled a sweeping reform that enables undocumented residents already living here an eight-year path to seeking citizenship or legal resident status; it seeks to speed up that path for agricultural workers and recipients of the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals program; and, yes, it seeks technology to help patrol the nation’s borders.

The childhood arrivals idea, aka DACA, became a favorite target of the Trump administration. Donald Trump rescinded President Obama’s executive order granting a form of amnesty from deportation for those who were brought here illegally as children. Joe Biden then rescinded Trump’s order in a kind of take-that approach to peeling back his predecessor’s policies.

Democrats unveil Biden’s immigration bill, including an eight-year path to citizenship (msn.com)

I am trying to take a longer view of the approach to immigration reform is taking. For sure I do not want to see a continuation of the heartlessness espoused by many of Donald Trump’s immigration advisers, namely that prince of darkness Stephen Miller who sounded for all the world like someone who wants to shut the door completely to all immigration. As the grandson of immigrants, I take deep personal offense at the approach that the Trump administration took and I welcome the more compassionate approach being expressed by the Biden team.

And no, I do not favor any sort of “open border” notion that has become a sort of whipping boy for those on the right who suggest that anything short of walling off the United States is an endorsement of welcoming everyone … legal and illegal immigrants alike. That is the stuff of demagogues.

I want President Biden to deliver on his 2020 campaign promise to fix the nation’s immigration policies. He has thrown a bold plan out there to ponder. Finding common ground is the basis for sound legislation. The president’s decades of experience as a U.S. senator puts him in position to lead that effort.

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Feeling ‘liberated’

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

The thought occurs to me that I have been liberated from the tumult that marked the four years of Donald Trump’s term as president of the United States.

I have been invigorated in a way by being able to focus on other issues, villains and heroes. It’s not that High Plains Blogger will lack the ability to reap a generous harvest from a target-rich environment. The field is full of villains and heroes. Donald Trump will occupy far less of my attention than he did while running for president and then actually being president.

He’s gone now. Sure, he still wants to be a player. I doubt seriously that he will be able to resurrect his political fortunes. State and local prosecutors are busy examining the many criminal cases involving Trump, his family and his myriad business involvements. There well might be plenty of opportunities that arise if prosecutors in New York, or Georgia or Florida produce indictments. I’ll bide my time.

Meanwhile, I’ll keep this blog busy with commentary on active politicians, on current issues of the day, on the heroes who work to make our lives better and, yes, while still chronicling the retirement journey my wife and I continue to enjoy.

This liberation feels mighty good.

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Good news to report

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

The number of Texans who are living with a boil-water advisory has declined by roughly 15,000 … or thereabouts.

That is the estimated population of Princeton in Collin County, where my wife and I live and which issued such an advisory when the city’s water treatment plant went down during the worst of the massive snowstorm that blanketed the state.

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality says the city has done what it should to make the tap water safe to consume. That’s good news, right? Right!

The TCEQ recommends we run the water for two minutes before using it. Hey, we can do that.

I just wanted to share this bit of cheer with you because we’ve all been deluged — no pun intended — with a torrent of misery brought by Mother Nature and worsened by the mismanagement of the state’s massive electricity grid.

We’ve got a way to go before we are totally free of the agony. It’s good to acknowledge that we are able to take baby steps toward that freedom.