Monthly Archives: July 2021

business news

Counter-intuitive message?

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

As a general rule I am disinclined to use this blog as a forum to criticize private businesses.

However, the image you see here appeared on my Facebook news feed and it prompts me to offer a brief commentary.

Wal-Mart says it is “investing in American jobs.” The other item you see circled is a self-checkout stand at a Wal-Mart store. The two things — the sign about investing in jobs and the checkout stand — appear to be counter-intuitive.

We have a Wal-Mart store in our town that has gone through a massive interior remodeling. It also is expanding its self-checkout operation.

At one level, I understand that Wal-Mart is entitled to say it is investing in American jobs if its investments include jobs related to warehousing, building maintenance, transportation, shelf-stocking.

The checkout counters, though, are the face of retail outlets … such as Wal-Mart.

I guess if I were to critique Wal-Mart’s advertising strategy, I would offer this bit of advice: Don’t position your “investment” sign within sight of a self-checkout counter. You expose yourself to ridicule.

national news

Post-presidency getting weird

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

The hits associated with the post-presidency of the twice-impeached, disgraced former Idiot in Chief just keep on comin’.

Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley now says he feared that the ex-POTUS might try to launch a coup attempt to stay in power after the 2020 presidential election, which he lost to President Biden!

The response from the ex-Nitwit in Chief? He writes: “I never threatened, or spoke about, to anyone, a coup of our government. So ridiculous!” Trump wrote. He went on to clarify that even if he were interested in organizing a coup, he’d prefer if Milley weren’t there. “Sorry to inform you, but an election is my form of ‘coup,’ and if I was going to do a coup, one of the last people I would want to do it with is General Mark Milley.”

Given the interminable trail of lies the ex-POTUS told during his term in office, are you inclined to believe his denial of ever thinking about a coup? Nah! Me neither.

legal news

No need to pack SCOTUS

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Hell hasn’t exactly frozen over, but the rare moment of my agreeing with a conservative legal scholar has arrived.

Jeremy Dys writes in The Hill that there exists no clear reason to expand the ranks of the U.S. Supreme Court, or to “pack” it to make it more palatable to us liberals.

I happen to agree with him.

Furthermore, I wish the lefties among us would just pipe down and let the judicial branch of our federal government do the job granted to it by the U.S. Constitution.

Dys and I come at this from different perspectives. He believes the court’s “center-left demise” has been exaggerated. I happen to believe that elections have consequences, as we learned to our dismay — I hasten to add — with the election in 2016 of the moron who got impeached twice by the U.S. House of Representatives.

He exited the White House in disgrace. However, he was able to nominate three individuals to the high court and much to the surprise of many of us, the judicial troika he selected hasn’t fallen in lockstep with whatever judicial philosophy POTUS 45 wanted them to follow.

No reason to pack the court | TheHill

Justice Stephen Breyer is not sending any strong signals that he is about to retire from the court. The liberal justice’s successor would not change the ideological balance on the SCOTUS. I do have a fear that if the GOP gets control of the Senate after the 2022 election that its leadership will stall any nomination process the way it did in 2016 when Justice Antonin Scalia died and the Senate denied President Obama the chance to select a successor to the conservative judicial icon.

But that’s how it goes.

I just dislike the notion of monkeying around the size of the Supreme Court because the politics of the moment do not suit one side of the political divide.

medical news

Why target Dr. Fauci?

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

There is so much to unpack about the ongoing controversy surrounding the COVID pandemic and our nation’s effort to defeat it that I am left to separate these issues and examine them one at a time.

For instance, why has Dr. Anthony Fauci become a target of the far-right wing goofballs out there who now are applauding Americans’ refusal to get vaccinated against COVID-19.

Just to revisit Dr. Fauci’s entrance onto the national stage for a moment, I feel the need to remind everyone of a thing or two.

POTUS 45 brought him aboard ostensibly to provide medical advice on how to respond to the pandemic as it began to tighten its grip on the nation in early 2020. The ex-POTUS made an inspired choice, given that Fauci has long been renowned as the nation’s leading infectious disease expert.

Then he debunked the counsel that Fauci gave. The then-Numbskull in Chief called Fauci an “idiot,” and accused him of overstating the severity of the disease.

The president left office after being defeated by President Biden. The criticism of Dr. Fauci has continued. Members of Congress are calling for Fauci to be fired. Why? Beats the hell out of me!

Dr. Fauci has become a lightning rod for those who continue to insist that vaccines present some threat to their health. Meanwhile, the good doctor insists the vaccines are effective, they are safe, they prevent people from being infected by a disease that can kill them.

It’s fallen on deaf ears and become — if you can believe it — live ammo for the critics to fire back at the doctor and his friends and allies in the Biden administration.

Fauci spoke with uncharacteristic emotion when he referred to the conservative political action conference in Dallas this past weekend where attendees actually cheered reports of Americans declining to be vaccinated. Do these nimrods want Americans to die?

So, the criticism continues. What should be a universally unified effort to fight a killer disease has been split along partisan lines. To think, too, that an esteemed medical professional — with stellar and unimpeachable credentials built over many decades — has become a target of right-wing goofs who think they know more than he does.

Astonishing.

State news

Where’s the fraud … Dan?

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

So help me, I cannot get my noggin past that idiotic offer Texas Lt. Gov.  Dan Patrick made some months ago to his fellow Texans.

He offered to pay anyone a million bucks if they produced evidence of widespread vote fraud in Texas during the 2020 presidential election. The offer has become part of the Republican legislative mantra as legislators seek to make it more difficult for Texans to vote.

The link between the offer and the GOP legislative effort is clear: Republicans insist there was fraud; no one has produced a shred of proof of fraud in Texas or anywhere else for that matter.

Patrick — who came into this world with the name of Dannie Scott Goeb (and I don’t know why I mentioned that, other than perhaps to illustrate this clown’s phoniness) — has made vote fraud an issue as he pushes the Texas Senate over which he presides to enact these restrictions.

Why, though, hasn’t Patrick produced proof? Why is he relying on some unknown Texan to provide the Legislature with proof — where none exists — of vote fraud?

The reason the lieutenant governor hasn’t delivered the goods is because there are no goods to deliver. It’s also why he hasn’t been forced to shell out the dough to anyone else who has proof of vote fraud.

It is another version of The Big Lie.

Lt. Gov. Patrick’s offer remains on the table. I do not expect anyone to come forward with proof of vote fraud. Which begs the question: Has the Texas lieutenant governor committed an act of treason — along with the former Nitwit in Chief — by challenging a free and fair election?

local news

Seen: a live armadillo!

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By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

MARTIN DIES JR. STATE PARK, Texas — You know the saying about there being “a first time for everything.”

This particular “first time” took many decades to present itself.

My wife and I saw a live armadillo scampering along a park road in this lovely state park deep in the Pineywoods of East Texas.

You see, we moved to Texas in 1984. That was — gulp! — 37 years ago. The armadillos I had ever seen — until we got here — were those that had been, um, reduced to road kill along our many thousands of miles of highways and bi-ways.

I once wrote a column for the Beaumont Enterprise — where I worked for nearly 11 years after arriving in Texas — about my frustration in never seeing a live armadillo. The only such critters I had seen had been of the type I described a few seconds ago.

We moved to Amarillo in 1995 and I was utterly certain we would see them a-plenty along the arid Caprock. Hah! Fat chance! Indeed, I noticed far fewer armadillo carcasses than we had seen along the Gulf Coast.

Over many years we have traveled the length and breadth of this vast state. Live armadillo sighting? Not a chance.

Until we ventured to Martin Dies Jr. SP.

My hope now for the little critter is that he/she stays the heck out of the way of oncoming traffic.

International news

Listen to The Bulldog

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

The 20th century’s greatest statesman was so wise on so many fronts, levels and issues.

His view that a nation must remember its past reminds me of something I saw while my wife and I were visiting friends in Germany in 2016.

Our friend took me to what they call in Nuremberg the “The Documentation Center.” What, you might ask, is the Documentation Center?

It is an exhibit that walks visitors through the Nuremberg war crimes trials that commenced shortly after World War II. Axis Powers officials were put on trial for their crimes against humanity. You know, The Holocaust … for example!

Our friend Martin told me straight up that Germany does not hide its past. The descendants of that terrible Nazi regime confront the ugliness of that era head on, he said. “We aren’t proud of it,” he told me. However, they put it all on full display for the world to see.

I came away from the exhibit moved and shaken at many levels by what I read and saw.

Five years later, the debate in this country centers on “critical race theory.” It speaks to the enslavement of human beings by other human beings. It poses fundamentally sound questions about the United States today remains a racist country.

These are not specious questions. They are legitimate. They deserve to be studied and discussed in our classrooms, in our dining rooms, in our living rooms.

national news

Biden calls out ‘Big Lie’

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By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

By all means, President Biden is correct to call out the Big Lie for what it is, an assault on democracy itself.

Moreover, the president is correct to lay the blame for this assault directly at the feet of the individual he defeated in the November presidential election.

Biden has joined the fight against Republican efforts to subvert Americans’ ability to vote. He also has joined the chorus of those of us out here who are appalled that POTUS 45 — who once swore an oath to protect and defend the Constitution — has been leading the effort to undermine it … even while he served as president!

As The Hill reported:

Biden blasted efforts from Trump and others to sow doubt about the election months after it concluded, which have spurred action from GOP-led state legislatures to push new elections laws that would limit absentee voting and make it more difficult for certain groups to vote.

“It’s clear, for those who challenge the results or question the integrity of the election, no other election has ever been held under such scrutiny or such high standards. The Big Lie is just that, a Big Lie,” Biden said at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia.

Biden rips Trump’s ‘big lie’ in voting rights address | TheHill

By my understanding of the term, I consider the ex-POTUS’s effort to undermine a free and fair election to be an act of treason. He incited the Jan. 6 insurrection. He continues to tell the Big Lie about alleged voter fraud. He has broken state and federal laws by seeking to get state election officials to overturn balloting results.

And yet there are those among us Americans who want the ex-Liar in Chief to return to the White House? So help me, I don’t which factor angers me more: that the ex-POTUS keeps telling the Big Lie or the cultists continue to believe it … and act on it!

The duly elected POTUS has weighed in. I am glad to hear the stern language he has used to call the Big Lie what it is.

Joe Biden

A return to globalist view

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Let’s dispel a myth that has been propagated from the right and far right and made even more of an epithet in the U.S. presidential era that just recently passed into history.

I hereby declare that “globalism” is not a four-letter word. It is not a concept to be scorned, or feared, or ridiculed. It is the reality of the world that is changing damn near daily.

President Biden has launched — among many initiatives — a drive to return the country he leads to its post-World War II role as the world’s leading nation. However, we no longer can carry the load that comes with the role by ourselves.

Thus, a globalist view of international policy becomes essential.

Joe Biden’s presidential predecessor sought to craft a policy around an “America first” notion that too often was interpreted as an “America only” policy. POTUS 45 stiffed our allies. He coddled our foes. He spoke admiringly of dictators who exercised supreme control over people’s lives.

His policies appeared disjointed and chaotic.

President Biden’s world view appears to be a vastly more inclusive one that means the United States will restore its role as an international leader, but working in concert with other nations in search of shared goals.

Climate change is a global threat. So is terrorism. Same for the ever-present danger of armed conflict between and among nations.

These matters affect all of us and they require worldwide solutions. They require a globalist strategy to find solutions to common woes.

I am at a loss as to why, therefore, the term “globalism” became the same thing as a curse word. I welcome its return to the center of White House sessions led by a president who cares to study the complex issues that should be of dire concern to every human being on Earth.

national news

Challenge to stay focused on future

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Photo by Alex Brandon/AP/Shutterstock 

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

It remains a serious challenge for me to remain focused intently on the future when the immediate past POTUS keeps lying blatantly, incessantly and without regard for the consequences … if any exist within his realm of cult followers.

The former Nitwit in Chief told Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo that the terrorist who stormed the Capitol Building on Jan. 6 was “shot in the head” as she sought to come out of the building.

He is lying. The woman who was shot was hit in the shoulder and she was shot while she was trying to break into the building to do untold harm to whomever was unlucky enough to stand in her way.

The idiot continues to foment the Big Lie about the 2020 election being stolen as a result of vote fraud. He lies about being reinstated as POTUS by the middle of August. He lies about every single issue under the blazing sun.

And yet …

The cultists believe him. I am going to share one brief notion about that, which is that the cultists who perpetuate the Big Lie are as guilty as the idiot who promotes it initially.