Monthly Archives: July 2021

national news, political news

‘Fraudit’ proves nothing

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Let’s call the Arizona “audit” of the 2020 presidential election what it is: a fraud.

Katie Hobbs, Arizona’s secretary of state, has declared her intense desire for the 45th POTUS to “accept the results” of the election — which he lost — and “move on.”

Well, good luck with that, Mme. Secretary. He won’t “move on,” at least not in the immediate or even long-term future.

What this whole exercise has demonstrated to those of us peering in from the outside is that the ex-Insurrectionist in Chief will stop at utterly nothing to hold onto the reins of power.

Reports are surfacing now that the “fraudit” that is concluding has found no demonstrable vote irregularity in Maricopa County, which helped deliver Arizona’s electoral votes to President Biden. The organization, which has zero experience with auditing elections, calls itself Cyber Ninjas. These goofballs have done nothing to advance the cause of voter integrity … because there is nothing to advance. The Arizona election was conducted fairly, cleanly, legally and was corruption-free.

So, the fraudulent exercise goes on. It appears to be nearing an end.

As The Hill reported: “The bottom line is that Arizonians are tired of being led by conspiracy theorists. They don’t support this fake audit, and they’re ready for leaders who are going to put those partisan games aside and deal with real issues,” Hobbs continued.

Arizona secretary of state to Trump before rally: ‘Take your loss and accept it and move on’ (msn.com)

President Biden has plenty of work to do. He need not be distracted for a single moment as he seeks to repair the wreckage left by his predecessor — who continues to deliver more wreckage by his idiotic quest for vote fraud that does not exist.

Sports news

Cleveland … Guardians?

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

OK. I am fine with the Washington Football Team of the National Football League jettisoning the name it used to call itself: the Redskins.

But, something inside my old man’s body tells me the Cleveland Indians’ decision to change its name to Guardians is a step too far into the realm of political correctness.

The Washington Football Team’s former name clearly had been interpreted as a slur against Native Americans. Old-time western cowboys would use the term as an epithet against Indians.

However, to change the name of one of Major League Baseball’s more storied franchises to the Guardians? I don’t get where this is going or where it might go.

As a friend of mine noted earlier today on social media, a Native American suited up for the Cleveland team many decades, becoming the first indigenous American to play big-league baseball. Thus, it is believed the Indians named the team in his honor.

Maybe I shouldn’t tread onto this ground, given that I am the grandson of immigrants from southern Europe. I don’t understand how a Native American might feel about an MLB team named the Indians. It’s just that to my eyes and ears the team nickname has a decidedly neutral sound to it, unlike the former name of the NFL team that plays tackle football in Washington, D.C.

How many more teams are going to succumb to the pressure that continues to mount?

Sigh …

Joe Biden, medical news, science news

Biden’s not to ‘blame’

John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I am among the last people on Earth to criticize the media, given that I am among those who are still pursuing the craft (more or less) and that I believe the media are doing a good job of reporting the news.

That all said, I want to chide the media for suggesting/implying/inferring that President Biden is somehow to “blame” for the administration falling short of its goal of achieving “herd immunity” against the COVID pandemic by the Fourth of July.

Let us ponder this briefly …

Joe Biden promised to make the vaccines available to anyone who wants it. He delivered the goods there. The shortfall in getting 70 % percent of the nation inoculated is because of those who have bought into the right-wing claptrap about the vaccines.

President Biden has done what he can do. He has sought to persuade Americans that the vaccines are effective and will not cause undue harm to anyone who receives any of them.

Biden inherited a mess when he took office. The previous administration botched many aspects of its handling of the pandemic from the get-go. Yes, it enacted Operation Warp Speed in its effort to get vaccines developed and for that I am grateful. But the previous POTUS managed to contradict and undermine the medical experts he brought on board at every turn.

We continue to make progress against the pandemic, although it has slowed dramatically with the delta variant surge that has kicked the Biden administration in the teeth.

As for putting “blame” on President Biden for falling short of its herd immunity goal, well, the media should look instead at those who are outshouting the rest of us with their baseless condemnation of the vaccines.

medical news

Vaccines work … dammit!

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

When you ponder all the infectious diseases that have been eliminated from Planet Earth over the years, you might then grasp the utterly absurdity of the criticism that is being leveled at the COVID-19 vaccine that is slowly doing the same thing to the current pandemic.

Polio has been eradicated. Smallpox, too. Same for tuberculosis. Measles and chicken pox are still around, but children get vaccinated against them anyway.

A friend of mine posted something on Facebook that wondered whether the right-wing media outlets had been around when the Salk and Sabin polio vaccines were being distributed and whether they would be critical of those research efforts, too.

Of course they would!

We have entered some sort of political twilight zone. A U.S. president bungled the initial response to the COVID-19 pandemic as it gripped the nation and the world. Instead of taking ownership of his mistakes and his failure, he initiates a campaign that denigrates the vaccine and those who promote it.

It has snowballed ever since, becoming a monstrous liability in the effort to get all Americans vaccinated against the killer disease and the variants it has spawned.

Good grief, man! The historical evidence is all around us that well-researched, heavily tested and certified vaccines do the job they are intended to do. Those who refuse to protect themselves and their children put not only themselves at risk, they pose an existential threat to us all.

They should be deemed a menace to society.

medical news

POTUS 45’s silence: reprehensible

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

It is beyond my capacity to understand the silence of one prominent American politician, but it requires me to lament it nonetheless.

The 45th president of the United States has received his vaccination against the COVID-19 virus, along with his wife and children.

It boggles my mind why the ex-POTUS doesn’t speak out now to encourage those among his millions of adherents to get vaccinated … just as he did!

He has remained silent. He says not a damn thing to encourage those who are most susceptible to the delta variant to get the vaccine that would protect them.

I mean, think of it in terms of political payback.

If this former Moron in Chief wants to run for the presidency again in 2024, it would serve his political interest to keep them around. Right?

Do not misunderstand me. I do not want this reprehensible individual to reap any political benefit. Were he to possess an ounce of empathy or compassion POTUS 45 would step up and seek to dispel the hideous misinformation that has seeped into the minds of those who have refused to receive the vaccine that could save their lives. Doing so well could prevent governments at all levels from reinstating restrictions that no one wants them to do.

The evidence of the delta variant’s impact is clear. It is sickening and killing un-vaccinated Americans at a far greater rat than it is harming those who are vaccinated.

Didn’t the ex-POTUS run for the nation’s highest office proclaiming to be a “populist”? My definition of the term tells me he is supposed to favor policies and make pronouncements that benefit the non-rich among us. Except that he isn’t a populist. He is a serial liar and con man.

That reality likely makes my humble plea an exercise in futility.

Instead of spreading The Big Lie about phony voter fraud and suggesting he will be “reinstated” as POTUS by the end of the summer, the former Imbecile in Chief can perform — finally! — an act of public service.

How? Just tell his fanatics to get vaccinated!

State news

AG hopeful stung by this reality

(AP Photo/LM Otero)

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

This clearly won’t help George P. Bush push his candidacy to become the next Texas attorney general.

It turns out, according to the Texas Tribune, that the state’s veterans homes — which are administered by the office Bush runs — have been dying of COVID pandemic complications at a rate greater than the state and national averages.

Bush serves as Texas land commissioner. The General Land Office runs programs aimed at helping Texas veterans. Bush now wants to be the next Texas attorney general. He is running in the 2022 Republican primary against incumbent Ken Paxton; former Texas Supreme Court Justice Eva Guzman also is running for the AG’s post in the GOP primary.

But wait! Now we hear that Texas veterans who live in GLO-administered veterans homes have fared poorly as the state has battled the COVID virus.

That’s on George P. Bush.

As the Texas Tribune reports: Nursing homes, which care for people who are already medically vulnerable, were ravaged by the pandemic. But Texas’ state-run veterans homes were often the deadliest places to be.

The nine state homes had more than double the death rate among COVID-19-infected residents compared with other nursing homes in the state, according to a Texas Tribune-Houston Chronicle analysis of state data from the pandemic’s start until June 2021.

Texas veterans homes were deadly during the COVID-19 pandemic | The Texas Tribune

Also from the Texas Tribune: Three of the state’s nine veterans homes — including Ambrosio Guillen in El Paso — had the highest death rate among all nursing homes in their county. Seven had a fatality rate of 25% or more, far higher than the statewide average of 11% across Texas nursing homes.

Bush wants to restore integrity in the attorney general’s office. Indeed, Paxton’s tenure since his taking office in 2015 has been fraught with scandal and suspicion of malfeasance and outright corruption.

Texas veterans and their family members need and deserve answers as to why state-run nursing homes have become synonymous with the term “death sentence.”

medical news

Pandemic ain’t over!

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

What in the name of sound medical science does it take for the cold, hard truth to sink in to some people’s noggins?

Many hard-right-wingers keep insisting that the COVID pandemic is over. That it’s OK to gallivant about sans face masks. That it’s time to  restore normal lifestyles. That it’s time to fire Dr. Anthony Fauci, the doomsayer who serves as senior medical adviser to President Biden.

One of them, rookie Republican U.S. Rep. Ronny Jackson — the former physician who now represents the 13th Congressional District in the Texas Panhandle — has been particularly reprehensible in his messaging. “The pandemic is over,” he bellowed via Twitter recently.

No, Dr. Dipsh**! It’s not over. Have you seen the papers lately? The delta variant is sickening people, almost all of whom are not vaccinated.

Bottom line: The vaccines are working. Whether it’s from Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson or Moderna, they’re doing what researchers intend for them to do, which is protect us.

I won’t toss stones at all Republicans. Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey said it is time for all Americans to get vaccinated. Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell has put out the call for vaccinations, too. Other Republicans in Congress have spoken forcefully in favor of the vaccines. However, they are being outshouted by the loons on the right wing of their party, the nut jobs who keep telling dangerous lies about the impact of the vaccines.

This struggle against the pandemic never should have devolved into the political mud-wrestling match it has become. But it has.

We need to pull together. All of us. In the same direction, with the same level of high energy to fight this killer.

What we need is what Gov. Ivey says is missing: “common sense.”

Joe Biden

What might ex-POTUS do if he loses again?

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

God Almighty might strike me dead for giving this a moment of thought, but here goes anyway.

What in the world might happen if the former A**hole in Chief loses a second time to President Biden in 2024? Will he declare that election, too, is “rigged,” that it is “fraudulent,” that it was “stolen” from him through widespread voter fraud?

Would he dare suggest such nonsense even if he were to lose in a monumental landslide, which I believe would be the result if we got a rematch from 2020.

You know already that I don’t foresee that scenario playing out. I don’t think the ex-POTUS is going to run. Nor do I think he would be nominated even if he were to seek the Republican presidential nomination in 2024.

But dang it, man! The question is worth asking only because when you ponder the weird machinations of the ex-Liar in Chief, well … damn near anything is possible.

medical news

Red vs. Blue in variant standoff

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

This much has been clear since the politicization of the COVID pandemic took center stage.

It is that Republicans are leading the chorus against the vaccines; Democrats support them. As a result, we are seeing a spike in delta variant virus infections in GOP-leaning states and regions while Democratic-leaning areas are, well, remaining somewhat stable.

What are we to make of that?

I’ll go out on a limb and suggest that the MAGA crowd is wrong about the efficacy of the vaccines. They are paying the price with sickness, hospitalization and even death. It’s a terrible waste of human life.

President Biden calls the surge an affliction of the unvaccinated. He is correct.

I will not stand by and let the fanatics who continue to support the former Insurrectionist in Chief continue to spew their lies about the vaccine. They have lied through their teeth about the vaccines. They have disputed the best medical minds on Earth. They are killing human beings and they have blood on their hands.

You want to play politics with this disease? Keep refusing to be vaccinated against the killer. The stakes then become a matter of life and death.

national news

GOP abandons Cheney?

(Photo by Marc Piscotty/Getty Images)

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Even though I know in my gut this won’t happen, I feel the need to suggest it as a possible political explosion that could upend the whole damn clown show unfolding on Capitol Hill.

U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming is facing a potentially serious Republican primary challenge next year. Why? Because she voted to impeach a Republican president for inciting the insurrection that damaged Capitol Hill and killed five people.

The GOP fanatics who are faithful to POTUS 45 are livid with Cheney. House GOP leadership stripped her of her standing as chair of the GOP caucus.

Cheney remains a conservative lawmaker. I cannot help but wonder whether there is a limit to the insult and denigration she is willing to take from members of her own political party.

Might there be a partisan switch in Cheney’s future, on the basis that the party she joined has become a cult that adheres to the mindless rants of one man and has forsaken its responsibility to the U.S. Constitution and the rule of law?

I get that it is as likely to happen as the sun rising in the west tomorrow morning. Still, the political tides have turned many politicians into members of the opposing party.

I remember when former state Rep. Warren Chisum of Pampa, Texas, switched from Democrat to Republican. He said plainly that he is the same man he was when he joined the Legislature, but that the Democratic Party had changed its identity.

As for Cheney, she could continue to serve as a conservative in Congress … even as a Democrat. Congress over its long history has welcomed many conservatives to the Democratic caucus in both legislative chambers.

It’s just that the Republican Party now seemingly belongs to the twice-impeached former POTUS who incited a bloody riot on Jan. 6 that sought to overturn the results of the November 2020 presidential election.

How in the world does someone of Cheney’s strong Republican ties remain loyal to a party that no longer is loyal to her or to her belief in the rule of law?

OK. I know I am spitting into the proverbial wind on this one.

It’s worth pondering.