Monthly Archives: May 2021

national news

I hate conspiracies

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I hate conspiracies, conspiracy theorists and I truly laugh out loud at times at those who keep conspiracies alive and kicking.

The latest conspiracy du jour is what has been called the Big Lie. It’s the one pitched, promoted and perpetuated by Donald J. Trump, the ex-POTUS who lost the 2020 election to President Joe Biden. He keeps feeding the conspiracy that the election was stolen by rampant vote fraud. It wasn’t. That should be the end of it, but oh no-o-o-o!

The Big Lie lives on.

We know all about the other big conspiracy theories that do not die as dead as the victims of the original act.

Lee Harvey Oswald pulled the trigger three times and killed President Kennedy in Dallas in November 1963. A commission led by Chief Justice Earl Warren confirmed that Oswald acted alone. I believe the Warren panel. I do not buy into the nutty notions that have been kicked around for 58 years since since that terrible day. They talk about the mob conspiring to kill JFK; or the CIA; or it was President Lyndon Johnson. They talk about a second shooter that day in Dallas, or a third one, maybe even a fourth shooter.

Accordingly, Sirhan Sirhan shot Sen. Robert Kennedy in the head in June 1968, delivering a mortal wound after RFK won that state’s Democratic Party presidential primary. He was wrestled to the ground by those accompanying the senator. Now, though, comes the conspiracy theorists led by the late senator’s own son, RFK Jr., to suggest that Sirhan didn’t do it or that he didn’t act alone.

In both of those cases I am left only to ask what I consider the threshold question: How in the name of state secrets does anyone keep such a conspiracy hidden from public view for nearly 60 years? Answer: They don’t because there is no conspiracy to keep hidden.

We hear conspiracies all the time. Most of the time they make for silly entertainment. Nothing more.

The Big Lie, though, is a conspiracy theory that presents a serious danger to our cherished system of government.

That one needs to die a quick death.

national news

Go away, Donald

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I continue to await the day when I no longer can wonder what in the world is going to fly out of Donald Trump’s mouth, what ends up on the news, what gets people yapping and yammering about this and/or that bit of nonsense.

Sadly, that day hasn’t yet arrived. The 45th POTUS keeps making news. Damn that dipsh**, anyway!

Some of the news isn’t of his making, at least not directly. We have those ongoing investigations that have turned into criminal probes of alleged illegal conduct. That’s newsworthy, right?

Then we have the other stuff, such as his declaring war against certain Republicans — politicians from his own political party (allegedly!) — who fail to do his bidding … as if it matters any longer what he says or does. I mean, the guy lost an election bigly against President Joe Biden.

And then — and how can we forget this — he continues to foment the Big Lie about how President Biden “stole” the election by taking advantage of “rampant vote fraud.”

There … was … no … vote … fraud!

That hasn’t stopped the butt wipes in Arizona from conducting that phony “audit” looking for miscounted ballots that would give the state’s electoral votes to Trump instead of where they already have been certified, in President Biden’s cache of votes.

I am sick and tired of Donald J. Trump. I want him off the grid. I want to concentrate on people in public life who really matter to me — and to the rest of the country that is trying to come back from the pandemic chaos that the ex-POTUS only worsened.

DC riot

What about these ‘blue lives?’

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Congressional Republicans and their followers around the country are proud to declare that “blue lives matter.”

I join them in that mantra. It is true that police officers put their lives on the line whenever they suit up for duty to protect and serve us all.

Why, then, are GOP congressional members digging in while resisting efforts to get at the whole truth behind what happened on Jan. 6 when a Capitol Police Department officer was killed while trying to fend off a horde of insurrectionists intent on overturning the results of a free, fair and legal election?

Doesn’t the “blue life” that was lost that day matter? Of course it does!

But now the GOP is claiming that Democrats and others among the Republican caucus are playing politics with whatever findings could come from a bipartisan commission tasked with determining the root cause of the insurrection.

Who is playing politics? It is the Republican leadership in Congress that shudders at the notion that we are going to learn once and for all what we all know: that Donald Trump, the insurrectionist in chief on that horrible day, is responsible for the attack on the government he took an oath to protect and defend.

national news, Uncategorized

What happened to GOP?

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By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

This question needs asking: What in the world has happened to the Republican Party?

It was hijacked decades ago by conservatives who grew weary of the party’s longstanding tradition of liberal thinking, of outreach to racial minorities, even of reasonable fiscal restraint and limited government interference.

It now has become a cult of personality. A once-great party is driven by its belief in the lunacy of the Big Lie, that an election was stolen through something they call “rampant vote fraud.”

The cultist who leads this moronic notion is Donald Trump, a former one-term president who actually incited a mob of terrorist rioters to overturn an election he lost.

As CNN’s Fareed Zakaria has noted in a special on his cable network, “Trump is gone” but his movement lives on.

Yes, this is the party that Trump once led even though he lacked any knowledge, let alone experience, in political life.

In an odd way, today’s GOP has switched places with what used to constitute the bulk of the Democratic Party. The old Democrats — particularly in the South — was populated by segregationists who resisted efforts to grant equal rights to black Americans. That version of the Democratic Party did not adhere to the loony notions of an individual, however, the way that the current Republican Party has glommed onto the imbecilic notions pitched by The Donald.

It is distressing for me to watch this devolution of a once-great political party. I say that as someone who hasn’t yet voted for a Republican for president. I go back a ways, having cast my first presidential vote in 1972.

Now that I am older, I could be persuaded to vote for a Republican for the nation’s highest office — except that the party is an extension of what is now being called “Trumpism.”

It is a horrible — and horrifying — fit, to be sure.

science news

UFOs? Absolutely

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

A few of the leading media talking heads have been yapping lately about unidentified flying objects.

Which brings me to this question: Do I believe in UFOs?

You bet I do!

Now, before you think I have flown off the rails, I need to stipulate one important caveat: I do not believe that UFOs are alien beings that have flown to Earth to invade us, to observe us, or to just make us ask dumb questions.

I also want to stipulate that I have seen hundreds of UFOs over my more than seven decades on Earth. I don’t what they are. Hence, they were “unidentified.” However, this speculation from some media types about whether the UFOs might be from some world out there carries as much weight as the discussions about a second gunman in Dealey Plaza the day President Kennedy was murdered … which is to say that I believe Lee Harvey Oswald acted all by himself.

This UFO chatter serves only to give some folks something about which to talk. That’s it.

I am not inclined to get into any discussion about whether we’ve been visited by space creatures. It’s just not in my wheelhouse.

However, we need to come up with another name for those things we see that we cannot identify. The term “UFO” takes on an entirely different meaning that it does not deserve.

State news

Permitless carry? Oh, boy!

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By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Texas state senators and state House members are so proud of themselves. They should be ashamed.

They have struck a compromise that clears the way for enactment of a “constitutional carry” bill that allows Texans to pack heat without passing even a simple test to determine that they know what to do with a firearm.

They say they are protecting “law-abiding citizens'” right to carry weapons. As if the state’s current concealed carry law wasn’t enough? Get real, man.

Texas constitutional carry deal made, author of House bill says | The Texas Tribune

I find this legislation to be an abomination beyond belief.

Gov. Greg Abbott says he’ll sign the bill when it gets to his desk. Big surprise there. Actually, it isn’t.

This is an absurd notion, making it easier for Texans carry firearms into public places.

It’s life in Texas, I suppose. I’ll just have to mind my Ps and Qs even more going forward.

International news

What happened to Middle East peace?

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By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

This thought just kicked in.

Didn’t the most recent ex-POTUS task his son-in-law to come up with a comprehensive peace agreement?

Jared Kushner got the assignment from Donald Trump. He went here and there during Trump’s term in office. The administration announced deals between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and with Bahrain, right?

But what about Hamas, the terrorists who run the West Bank and Gaza? They launched rockets into Israel; the Israelis fought back.

Then the Joe Biden administration turned up the heat on the Israelis and on Hamas to get a cease-fire deal done … as in right now!

They did.

However, I am just wondering why Jared Kushner’s alleged diplomatic “genius” failed to produce an agreement.

medical news

Back to hugging, kissing

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

LOS GATOS, Calif. — I must have heard it a half-dozen times while visiting a friend in this high-end Bay Area community.

We went to a gathering of fellow Rotary Club members, where my friend once served as club president and later as governor of the Rotary district.

Several folks were hobnobbing, chatting and laughing at each other’s jokes. When they embraced, they would say to each other, “Oh, it’s so nice to be able to hug again.”

Yes, this is the sound of the post-pandemic age setting in slowly. “Hey, don’t worry,” one of them told me. “We’ve all been vaccinated” against the COVID-19 virus, they said.

So, there you go. So have my wife and me.

I had no issue at all with the way folks were interacting. I am intrigued, though, at the response to federal medical experts’ changing guidelines regarding masks and social distancing in this region that takes safeguard measures quite seriously. They, too, are relieved at the relaxed guidelines and are as anxious as those of us in Texas are to get back to living the way we used to live before the pandemic began killing Americans.

I am not going to jump with both feet into the life we once led prior to the pandemic hitting us where it hurts. We still wore masks when we entered public places. We will continue to do so until someone down the road delivers the all-clear signal. Who should deliver that message when the time arrives? I guess when Dr. Anthony Fauci says it, then it must be true.

Even in this time when politics infects everything, it is striking to my ears to hear folks who live in a deeply blue/Democratic-leaning part of the nation express a strong interest in returning quickly to the life we all led before disease and death changed everything.

local news

Gerrymandering? Holy cow!

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Wow! Take a gander at this Houston-area congressional district.

The caption atop the map says it clearly: gerrymandering is a serious problem.

I don’t blame Rep. Dan Crenshaw for it; he merely was elected to a district redrawn after the 2010 census.

Texas legislators who have worked on this issue have told me the alleged “goal” always is to create districts where residents share what they call “common interests.” For the ever-lovin’ life of me I cannot envision common interests between residents living in the far reaches of Crenshaw’s district.

I generally avoid a “both sides do it” argument on issues, but I cannot do so this time. Democrats have done the same thing to congressional and legislative districts that Republicans do now in Texas. When Democrats controlled the Legislature after the 1990 census, they drew a line separating the 13th and 19th congressional districts through the middle of Amarillo, which from 1991 until 1995 was represented by a Democrat elected in Potter County and a Republican elected in Randall County.

The Democrat, Bill Sarpalius, had a vastly different legislative view than the Republican, Larry Combest … which put Amarillo in the middle of a political tug-of-war that didn’t do the city much good.

That changed in 1994 with the election of Republican Mac Thornberry in the 13th District, which includes the Potter County portion of Amarillo.

The Legislature is going to make another run at redistricting again. The 2020 census has established that Texas will get two additional congressional seats. Will the Legislature find the wisdom to redraw the congressional boundaries that do not look as hideous and ridiculous as the Houston district represented by Dan Crenshaw?

Hah! I am not holding my breath.

local news

Shut up, Rep./Dr. Jackson

(AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Ronny Jackson is making me very angry.

By all rights I shouldn’t really give a crap what this former physician and current congressman representing the Texas Panhandle thinks … except that I do. I used to live in the district this bozo now represents.

Jackson has adopted Twitter — in the mold of Donald J. Trump — as his primary bullhorn to spout nonsense. His most recent tweet now contends that because of inflation and rising fuel prices President Biden is marching this nation toward being a “Third World country.”

Good grief, dude.

The inflation is a result of pent up demand being released on shortened supply caused by the COVID pandemic. We are vaccinating more Americans than ever; infection rates are declining; so are death and hospitalization rates. Isn’t that cause for celebration … doc? Hmm?

Get the hell off the partisan clown car, Rep. Jackson and look more realistically at the big picture.