Monthly Archives: June 2021

legal news, State news

Justice Guzman to seek AG’s office? Hmm

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

It might be time for a mea culpa from your friendly blogger.

I might have spoken a bit too soon in lamenting the lack of legal standing among politicians seeking to become Texas attorney general.

Texas Supreme Court Justice Eva Guzman is about to become a former justice … with an eye toward running for Texas AG in the 2022 Republican Party primary. Her last day on the state’s highest civil appellate court is Friday. Then what?

Eva Guzman – Wikipedia

Justice Guzman represents a tremendous boost in the legal credentials of a political candidate seeking to become the state’s top law enforcement officer.

The incumbent Ken Paxton wants a third term. Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush has declared he wants to defeat Paxton in the 2022 GOP primary. Both men have, shall we say, sparse legal cred. Paxton has been indicted for securities fraud and is awaiting trial; he also is the subject of a FBI probe into allegations of criminal wrongdoing in his office. Bush has a limited legal career under his belt, but has served as land commissioner for the past six years.

Now we have Guzman. She is the daughter of immigrants from Mexico. She grew up in Houston. She attended the University of Houston and got her law degree from Duke University. She has served on the state court of appeals and has been named appellate judge of the year.

Guzman has built a stellar legal career.

To be clear, she hasn’t declared her attorney general candidacy.

At least not yet. Stay tuned.

local news

Freshmen or first-year?

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I need to get out more.

Texas Christian University, in Fort Worth, has decided it no longer will refer to new students at the school as “freshmen.” It will call ’em “first-year students.”

Oh, my goodness. This is another cog in the gender-neutral wheel that’s being turned at institutions around the nation. Some folks believe that the term “freshmen” is, um, too gender specific. To fix that issue, they want to rid the language of such terminology.

OK. How do I respond to this?

Let’s see. I’ll respond by disregarding it for the most part. I don’t attend school. Neither do my sons. My granddaughter is still in elementary school, so she isn’t even old enough to be troubled by terms and phrases that she might perceive to be offensive.

Sigh.

I long have considered myself to be a liberated American male. Many of the changes in popular culture have been all right with me. This one, though, simply annoys me. It’s not as though I’ll spend a moment worrying about it. I won’t lose a minute of sleep over whether TCU’s freshmen students will be called “first-year” Horned Frogs.

As I step back and take a longer view of it, I am left to wonder: When is this gender-neutrality effort going to end? 

The older I get the more I find myself disliking politically correct terminology. I get that we no longer use racially insensitive terms and I am fine with that nod to political correctness. I supported the decision to change the name of the Washington team that plays in the National Football League.

However, TCU’s decision to end the use of the term “freshmen” is an annoyance I cannot let pass.

Let us all stay tuned. I am certain there will be many more of these so-called language “reforms” on the horizon.

State news

Pols tend to set low standard

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(AP Photo/LM Otero)

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

When a politician sets a bar that is lower than a snake’s belly, one could tend to accept any improvement as a big plus, no matter how minimal it might appear.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, to my way of thinking, comes close to being the epitome of a politician who sets a low bar for the high office he occupies.

This guy is Texas’s chief law enforcement officer. He should come to the office with high credentials, stellar legal standing and a  reputation that is beyond reproach. Has he met any of those standards? Umm, no.

He was a mediocre lawyer when he ran for the Legislature. He won election as AG in 2014 and then quickly got indicted on a securities fraud allegation; Paxton is still awaiting trial in state court. Then several of his highly placed legal assistance filed a whistleblower complaint alleging that Paxton is engaging in criminal activity; that investigation is ongoing, too.

Up steps a challenger in the 2022 GOP primary. He is George P. Bush, son of a former Florida governor and nephew and grandson of two former POTUSes. I already am on record as endorsing Bush’s decision to challenge Paxton, although I will not commit to voting for him in the 2022 GOP primary.

I do question whether Bush brings any stronger legal credentials to this campaign than Paxton. What has this fellow done legally? Does his name appear on any landmark statute? Is he in high demand as a lecturer at any of the state’s distinguished law schools? Not as far as I can tell.

George P. Bush currently serves as Texas land commissioner, where is runs an agency — the General Land Office — that is charged with caring for Texas veterans benefits along with administering the state’s paltry amount of public land.

Hey, I don’t mind electing these folks. I just wish that politicians could somehow find a way to lift the standard of the office they seek and then hold.

Politics and impeccable standards need not be mutually exclusive. Then again … maybe I am asking for too much.

environmental news

Climate threat is real and dangerous

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

President Biden is seeking to redefine the term “infrastructure.”

However, he is running into plenty of old-school resistance from his former friends in the Republican Party, who continue to insist that infrastructure should include roads, bridges, airports and ship channels.

Biden sees a wider world than that. He has reeled in climate change and the effect it has on our way of life. That, too, deals with “infrastructure,” according to the president.

No surprise, but I happen to agree with President Biden’s broader view of the world and the impact of factors that change it.

Biden and congressional Republicans have reached an impasse. Biden wants a massive infrastructure bill to include work on climate change; Republicans think it’s beyond the scope of the traditional definition of the term “infrastructure.”

What, though, happens to our coastal communities if sea levels keep rising? Or to our seaports? To highways, bridges and other thoroughfares threatened by the inevitable warming of the climate and the effect it has on our environment?

That is why in my view climate change must take a front-and-center place among the issues that need our government’s attention.

Joe Biden brought former Secretary of State John Kerry on board as a climate change adviser. Kerry is working with heads of state around the world to rivet their attention as well on the impact that climate change is having on their nations. We have returned to the Paris Climate Accords, from which we withdrew four years ago.

I can think of nothing at all more compelling than finding a way to preserve Planet Earth’s ecosystem for future generations to enjoy. It might already be too late to prevent all the destruction of our planet that is coming. None of that should preclude any effort to seek ways to head it off or to limit the impact it will bring to the only planet we can call home.

Yeah, infrastructure must include climate change.

Joe Biden

Biden: U.S. is back

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

President Biden arrived in the United Kingdom today delivering a message he intends to carry with him throughout his first trip abroad as the leader of the world’s greatest nation.

It’s a simple, but profound, statement: The United States is reasserting itself on the world stage.

I won’t belabor the point that’s been made here repeatedly, that Biden’s immediate predecessor damaged our nation’s alliances and emboldened our adversaries.

Instead, I simply want to extol the notion that the president of the United States is going to speak words of encouragement to our friends while offering words of warning to our foes. That, I submit, is how it should be.

Biden arrives in U.K. to press a message: ‘The United States is back’ (msn.com)

President Biden intends to parlay his intimate knowledge of the men and women who lead the world’s leading economic powers into effective relationships at the highest levels of government. That works for me. It also works for me that the leader of the world’s remaining superpower should speak strongly while admonishing those who would seek to do us harm. That would be you, Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.

Joe Biden is going to speak to the world from a position of immense strength. The nation he leads has turned the corner on fighting the COVID virus; he intends to purchase hundreds of millions of vaccine doses and distribute them to nations around the world. Our economy is reviving at a rapid rate.

The president is not going to apologize for past mistakes. He intends to look forward. That, too, is all right with me.

I have said repeatedly for the past year or so that Joe Biden was not my first pick to succeed Donald Trump. He survived a brutal Democratic Party presidential primary and then thumped the incumbent president in the November election.

He didn’t take office as a novice politician. He is a seasoned hand who knows how government works. President Biden also knows the role that this nation must continue to play on the world stage.

I am heartened that he has pledged to bring this nation back to the center of the world stage where it belongs.

medical news

Fauci fires back

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

The Republican congressional caucus believes it smells Dr. Anthony Fauci’s blood in the water.

The GOP believes it has discovered a potentially mortal self-inflicted wound on the nation’s top infectious disease expert. It wants Fauci fired from his post as President Biden’s chief medical officer.

Why? Because of emails that have revealed that Fauci has changed his mind on the impact of the COVID virus and the effect of mask-wearing, which Fauci once dismissed as ineffective.

He has changed his mind about how to combat the killer virus. As if that’s a firing offense! You must be joking. Sadly, many among the GOP congressional caucus aren’t offering laugh lines. They want Fauci fired.

Again, I ask: For what?

Fauci is firing back at his critics. He says he is “following the science” as it relates to the pandemic that swept into this country at the end of 2019. It has killed hundreds of thousands of Americans and sickened millions more. Did the good doctor know all there was no to know about the virus when Donald Trump brought him on board to help craft a White House response to the pandemic? No, he didn’t.

Nor did anyone else.

Fauci took up his own defense while visiting on NBC News with Chuck Todd. As Newsweek reported: “It wasn’t only me,” Fauci told Todd of the advice not to wear a mask. “I’m picked out as the villain. It was the surgeon general of the United States and the entire CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) was saying the same thing.”

Fauci Calls Push for Firing ‘Preposterous,’ Says He’s Being Attacked for ‘Following the Science’ (msn.com)

However, Fauci has been singled out by the likes of the QAnon queen, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, as a candidate for imprisonment. Ridiculous! Then again, Rep. Greene’s idiocy is known throughout the country.

When one “follows the science,” as Fauci has done, the journey might take one down a dead-end alley or two. So it well might have happened with the good doctor. This email kerfuffle is being hyped by demagogues.

Joe Biden

Give Putin the dickens, Mr. POTUS

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By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Vladimir Putin is in dire need of a stern lecture from the leader of the world’s remaining military superpower.

The Russian strongman is preparing no doubt for a summit meeting with President Biden, who has just commenced his first foreign trip as our commander in chief.

Biden has said in public that he plans to bring up at least three critical issues that his immediate predecessor, Donald Trump, didn’t bother to broach with his strongman pal.

They include: interference in our elections, human rights concerns, the paying of bounties to Taliban terrorists who kill American service personnel on the Afghanistan battlefield.

President Biden has known Putin for many years, owing to his two terms as vice president and his time as a U.S. senator. He told Putin once that he looked into the Russian’s eyes and “did not see a soul,” which Putin reportedly responded that the men understood each other.

Whereas Trump coddled dictators, President Biden has expressed an intention to take an entirely different approach in dealing with Putin. Joe Biden now gets his chance to demonstrate that he means business and that he will make Putin answer for the behavior he has sanctioned while governing Russia.

My hope for Joe Biden is that he deals with Putin as the leader of the world’s most powerful and indispensable nation and that Putin no longer can act as though Russia is our equal. It isn’t.

environmental news

Gohmert asks for this? Really?

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

This question deserves to be asked: Is Louie Gohmert really as stupid as he sounds?

The Republican congressman from Tyler, Texas, actually wondered aloud during a House committee hearing whether the U.S. Bureau of Land Management or the U.S. Forest Service could — get ready for it — change the moon’s orbit around Earth or Earth’s orbit around the sun. 

I am left initially to mutter: Holy sh**!

To be clear, Gohmert represents a portion of the GOP that I call the Loony Bin Wing. I also must stipulate that Louie the Goober is a graduate of Texas A&M University and from the law school at Baylor University. That’s right. The wacko has a law degree!

The Hill reports:

Gohmert was speaking with Jennifer Eberlien, associate deputy chief of the National Forest System, during a House Natural Resources Committee hearing.

“I understand from what’s been testified to the Forest Service and the BLM [Bureau of Land Management], you want very much to work on the issue of climate change,” Gohmert said to Eberlien, adding that a past director of NASA had once told him that orbits of the moon and the Earth were changing.

“Is there anything that the National Forest Service, or BLM can do to change the course of the moon’s orbit or the Earth’s orbit around the sun?” Gohmert asked Eberlien. “Obviously they would have profound effects on our climate.”

Gohmert asks if federal agencies can change Earth’s or moon’s orbits to fight climate change | TheHill

So help me I do not know what to think of this. Gohmert cannot possibly contend he was joking, or that his question was taken out of context, or that the media are making hay out of a “fake news” event.

My goodness, this man represents a portion of the state where I live.

I am reminded of something my father used to tell when I complained about the weather. Dad would say, “Go talk to God.”

Hey, Rep. Gohmert, you need to ask the Almighty about doing something that is, shall we say, way above the BLM or USFS paygrade.

State news

GOP no longer ‘pro-business’ party?

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

If you thought that the Republican Party is the “pro-business” political organization, you might want to rethink that now-quaint notion.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican (of course), has signed a bill into law that punishes business for demanding that customers prove they have been vaccinated against the COVID-19 virus, the one that has killed nearly 600,000 Americans.

It seems that Abbott believes people have no need to prove to anyone they have been vaccinated against a highly communicable, infectious and still potentially fatal disease.

Sure thing, guv.

He can count me as one Texas resident has no problem providing proof to anyone that I have been vaccinated. Indeed, my wife and I got our shots relatively early and have been adhering to the mandates sought by federal medical authorities: masks, social distancing, frequent hand-washing, and so on.

The Texas Tribune reports: “Texas is open 100%, and we want to make sure you have the freedom to go where you want without limits,” Abbott said before signing the law, in a video he posted Monday on Twitter. “Vaccine passports are now prohibited in the Lone Star State.”

Sigh …

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signs bill to restrict “vaccine passports” | The Texas Tribune

I am puzzled by the notion that a political party that used to tout its love for private business and sought to grant business owners relative autonomy from government interference is now endorsing this heavy-handed approach to preventing them from protecting their employees and those they serve.

media news

He takes ownership

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(AP Photo/Chris Pizzello, File)

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

A brash and loud former TV commentator deserves high praise for the slow and careful re-emergence into the public eye after disappearing with virtually no warning earlier this year.

Chris Matthews, the retired MSNBC commentator and host of “Hardball,” has been seen on TV in recent days talking about the state of politics (of course) and the event that led to his sudden retirement from TV news and opinion.

Matthews was accused by a fellow reporter of making untoward remarks in her presence while they were preparing for a broadcast. Matthews has admitted in recent days that her accusation was accurate and that he acted boorishly.

He resigned from his “Hardball” gig on the air and then disappeared.

Matthews just now is beginning to return to the public discussion of politics and policy. He has told interviewers that he doesn’t deserve to be defended by those who stand with him. Matthews admitted to messing up. “Don’t defend me,” he told late-night host Stephen Colbert on Monday night.

He has taken full ownership of his transgression. I admire that about him. I also have enjoyed listening to his take on politics and policy over the years.

Now, though, Chris Matthews has demonstrated a trait we don’t always see in grown men who are caught behaving badly.