Monthly Archives: August 2021

DC riot

Officer acted correctly on 1/6

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By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Ashli Babbitt was a casualty of 1/6.

She died while trying to break into the Capitol Building, along with several thousand of her fellow terrorists/rioters/insurrectionists. A Capitol Police officer shot her to death.

Well, today the Capitol Police internal investigation released its decision, which is that the officer did nothing wrong. That Ashli Babbitt was killed by an officer performing his lawful duty to protect the nation’s seat of government.

Now, is this the end of it? Hardly.

I fully expect there to be plenty of growling and grumbling from those who believe the officer went beyond his orders to protect the Capitol Building.

Internal Probe Clears Officer Who Shot Capitol Rioter Ashli Babbitt | HuffPost

I want to be clear on a couple of points. I am saddened that the 35-year-old Babbitt died in the melee. However, the Air Force veteran was breaking the law at the time of the incident. She was trying to smash her way into Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office lobby when the officer, a lieutenant with the Capitol Police force, fired his weapon at her.

No one should have been died or been injured in the chaos that unfolded on 1/6. Then again, the mob should not have stormed into the Capitol Building, beaten security officers with poles, or sprayed them with chemicals, or crapped on the floor of Congress. Nor should they have been threatening to “Hang Mike Pence!” or sought Speaker Pelosi by chanting her name in that frightening cadence we all could hear on the audio recordings taken of the event.

Pelosi has impaneled a House select committee to examine all the details of the 1/6 attack on our government. She vows a thorough probe. Congressional Republicans oppose this investigation for reasons that seem clearer by the day: They don’t want to be implicated in any fashion by what the panel determines.

Now, though, we have completed one key element in that probe. The investigation into Ashli Babbitt’s death will go down as a tragic consequence of the riot that sought to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

International news

Deadline may be extended

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

President Biden’s plate of critical decisions is piling up and spilling onto his lap.

Here’s another one that looks more imminent each passing day: The Aug. 31 deadline for pulling out of Afghanistan might be delayed a while longer. Why? Because the president has promised to get every American and Afghan ally who who wants out of the country safe passage to freedom.

My strong hunch is that the project won’t be completed by Aug. 31.

Does that mean our troops who have been sent back to help with the evacuation will remain permanently? Hardly. It means that Joe Biden’s pledge to end our involvement in an Afghan civil war will have be set back until we can get everyone out of there.

Congressional Republicans are threatening impeachment if Biden leaves anyone behind. Frankly, that is the rhetoric of tinhorns. Yes, our withdrawal has gone badly. President Biden is seeking to correct it and we are sending an accelerated number of evacuees out of the country each day.

But the deadline for an end is a week away. Can we finish the job in that short span of time? I doubt it. Keep the troops on call, Mr. President, until the mission is accomplished.

local news, medical news, State news

A rebellion takes hold

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By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Let’s call it what it appears to be: a schoolhouse rebellion.

Nearly 50 independent school districts in Texas have decided to defy Gov. Greg Abbott’s no-local-measures mandate and declared that their students, faculty and staff will mask up when they enter these educational institutions.

That’s good news, at least it is to me. The even better news is that the state is not going to dig in and force the school districts to abide by Gov. Abbott’s ridiculous — and dangerous — executive order.

It is ridiculous because it flies directly against the traditional Republican political mantra that declares local control is the better way to manage public policy issues.

It is dangerous because situations differ from community to community and for the governor to issue an order prohibiting school districts from requiring masks puts everyone in potentially dire peril of being infected by the COVID-19 virus or the Delta variant that has sprung forth.

You want more good news? The Food and Drug Administration this morning gave full authorization for the Pfizer vaccine to be used to inoculate human beings against the coronavirus.

President Biden has declared that vaccination rates are climbing again.

Yes, there remain the fearmongers out there who continue to spread lies about the vaccines. Hospitals are at or over capacity. Children are getting sick. Fully vaccinated Americans are coming down with the virus. So it’s not all peaches and cream, right?

In Texas, though, there appears to be some semblance of sanity and reason taking root in classrooms throughout the state.

Thank goodness.

International news

Do we stay or do we go?

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By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Public opinion polls have had their hands full in the past few days.

They are scurrying around the country asking Americans whether the Afghan War was worth the fight. A significant majority of Americans are telling them “no,” it wasn’t worth it.

And yet …

Congressional Republicans continue to pound President Biden over his decision to bring our troops — all of them — off the battlefield. A consequence has been the Taliban takeover of a country our forces fought to protect against the terrorists’ retaking control of the country.

I want to reiterate a key point. President Biden ended what his immediate predecessor started, which was a negotiated settlement to end our fight. That fact has been lost on GOP critics of Joe Biden, one of them being U.S. Rep. Van Taylor, my congressman, who said this in a statement: “Reminiscent of Saigon, President Biden naively chose to conduct an ill-advised and poorly planned withdrawal from Afghanistan despite warnings from national security experts and continuous violations from the Taliban.”

Huh? Eh? Taylor said Biden should have done “nothing.” His decision to end the fight, Taylor said, leaves “America and Americans worse off for it.” He calls this one of the president’s “reckless decisions.”

Hmm. I will disagree respectfully with the congressman.

Americans didn’t want to keep fighting an unwinnable war. POTUS No. 45 sought to negotiate a deal with the Taliban, remember? Do you also recall how he invited the Taliban to Camp David — on a date commemorating the 9/11 attack on our nation?

I agree that the withdrawal should have been planned better. Then again, there should have been an end-game strategy on the day we launched the Afghan War after 9/11. There wasn’t.

By my way of thinking, “doing nothing” about Afghanistan was not an option. President Biden had two choices: staying or leaving. He made the right call.

local news

Why fret over this clown?

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Some readers of this blog might be wondering why I spend any time  criticizing a member of Congress who represents a district where I no longer reside.

I will answer that query, presuming some of you are wondering.

I have spoken out about the Twitter rants of a Republican serving the 13th Congressional District of Texas. Ronny Jackson lives in Amarillo. He is a disgrace. I have said so, admittedly with extreme prejudice.

I care about that fellow’s rants for two reasons.

One is that my wife and I lived there for 23 years, longer than anywhere we have resided in our nearly 50 years of marriage. One of our sons still lives there. We have many friends there, too. I care about them. They should be represented by someone who (a) isn’t a carpetbagger and (b) isn’t prone to making defamatory remarks about the commander in chief, which Jackson does regularly about President Biden.

The second reason is that Ronny Jackson votes on legislation that affects every American. It’s the same reason I care about the goings-on involving other congressional fruitcakes and loons; Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Matt Gaetz, Kevin McCarthy and Sen. Mitch McConnell come immediately to mind. When they vote on federal legislation, they put their imprimatur on laws that have a direct impact on every single American.

Congressman: detestable! | High Plains Blogger

I won’t apologize for harboring these feelings about members of Congress, any more than I feel the need to justify why I support other members of the legislative branch of government. Or, for that matter, why I continue to support President Biden … even as he struggles with crises, as he is doing at this moment.

We have plenty of fruitcakes in North Texas, where we now live. I’ll be getting to them in due course. I just felt the urge to explain a thing or two about why I still look back fondly at our time on what I call the Texas Tundra and why I want the best for the good folks who still call it home.

local news

Congressman: detestable!

(AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

This must be said in the clearest terms possible.

I truly detest the nitwit who represents the Texas Panhandle congressional district I called home for more than 23 years.

Ronny Jackson, a Republican carpetbagger, moved into the 13th Congressional District to run for the seat vacated by fellow Republican Mac Thornberry. He won in a walk in 2020.

Since taking office, Jackson has done nothing but shame himself with idiotic, nonsensical and defamatory tweets about President Biden.

He continually accuses Biden of lacking the mental snap to do the job. Jackson keeps yapping about giving the president a cognitive test. He refers in degrading terms to the commander in chief, which is ironic … given that Jackson is a retired Navy rear admiral.

Jackson has become a right-wing fan favorite of those who watch Fox News, the One America Network and other ultra-conservative media outlets. Why? Because he spews the garbage that comes out of their mouths every hour of every single day.

I know I shouldn’t be surprised that the GOP-fervent Texas Panhandle would elect such a clown. I am not. That doesn’t, however, diminish my disappointment that the Panhandle of Texas would elect such an individual to represent their interests on Capitol Hill.

I shake my head constantly at the ramblings, rantings and fire-breathing rhetoric that come from this clown.

If only he hadn’t won by such a significant majority. Were he elected by the hair of his chinny chin, I might be willing to suggest that the Panhandle voters deserve better than what they got.

Sadly, I cannot. They got precisely what they must’ve known they were getting.

national news

GOP faces a reckoning

(Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

There can be no denying that the Republican Party is facing a reckoning.

It has to decide if it is going to remain on the track laid out by an individual who has corrupted a once-great party. Or will it return to matters of principle and public policy?

The individual who corrupted the party — the 45th POTUS — lacks any defining principle. Unless you consider revenge, spite and chaos to be principles that define a political party.

POTUS 45 had zero Republican Party policy experience when he entered the 2016 GOP primary campaign. He won the party’s nomination that year by hammering his foes into submission. Then he won the presidency — with a bit of help from the FBI and its infamous e-mail investigation. He also won because of incompetence in the Democratic nominee’s campaign.

The presidency became POTUS’s play thing. Many of his top campaign aides found themselves indicted on criminal charges. The corruption ran throughout the highest rungs of his political ladder.

Oh, and then he got impeached twice. Once for trying to coerce a foreign government into doing his political bidding and once for inciting an insurrection that sought to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

Many of the men and women who served with him have stood behind his corruption and his venality. For what? Someone needs to explain to me the strange grip this clown has over a party with which he had no prior knowledge or familiarity.

The 2022 midterm election is coming up. POTUS 45 wants to have a big time say in who gets elected. He wants to elect those who are blindly loyal to him. Oh, boy. If the party follows that course, it will consign itself — as well as the nation — to a future shrouded in darkness and corruption.

I am a good-government progressive who wants the Republican Party to rediscover its basis for existing and to debate the Democratic Party openly and honestly without the hatred that stains the rhetoric that comes from the one-time Liar in Chief.

Is that possible? For the nation’s sake, I hope so.

local news

No mention of 1/6

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

A town hall meeting in Rockwall, Texas, this week produced plenty of fiery rhetoric from a congressman who represents the Northeast Texas region contained in the Fourth Congressional District.

Rep. Pat Fallon came loaded with plenty of ammo to fire at President Biden over Afghanistan (the withdrawal), infrastructure spending, COVID-19 and the Democratic House caucus over the rules it is imposing over the way lawmakers behave.

But … no mention from Rep. Fallon about 1/6 and — if you’ll excuse my use of a term not heard among members of the GOP caucus — the insurrection incited by the former Insurrectionist in Chief.

Nor was there any mention of the riot from any of the folks crammed into a Rotary Club office to hear from their congressman.

Now, I suppose I could have raised the issue, given that I was there covering the event for a local weekly newspaper near where I live. Indeed, I did give it some thought. Then it occurred to me: If I raise the issue and ask Fallon why he and most of his fellow congressional Republicans refuse to examine the why and wherefore of the attack on the Capitol, I would have become part of the story.

I feared the folks in the audience would have turned on me, given that Fallon already had taken shots during his remarks at what he called “the mainstream media.” The audience also took a dim view of the media’s coverage of the 2020 election,

My task while there was to report on the event, to record what Fallon said and to chronicle the town hall meeting for the readers of the newspaper for which I write. That’s it, man. I did my job.

However, it did frustrate me a little to hear not a word from Rep. Fallon — an ardent supporter of the former POTUS — about his take on what went down on 1/6 and whether he believes POTUS 45 was in any way culpable in provoking the attack that sought to overturn the results of a free, fair and legal presidential election … which the former president lost to Joe Biden.

Well, I know the answer to that notion. I just wanted to put him on the record. Oh well. There might be another time. I’ll wait.

military news

Rep. Gaetz pops off

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By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz, who’s under investigation for alleged sex trafficking and for having sex with underage girls, needs to put a sock in his pie hole.

He has called Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin possibly “the stupidest person to ever serve in a presidential Cabinet.” Gaetz tore into the retired four-star Army general for decisions he made while he was in charge of Central Command and as defense secretary.

Gaetz, a Florida Republican, is known primarily for two things: for being a loudmouth and a blowhard and for being an unabashed supporter of the disgraced and twice-impeached former Liar in Chief.

One more point.

Gaetz has challenged the integrity and the honor of the first African-American ever to hold the office of defense secretary. Lloyd Austin served with honor and dignity during nearly 40 years wearing the military uniform.

What about Gaetz’s service to the country? Has he thrust himself into harm’s way?

Umm … no.

media news

Test of rehabilitated skill

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By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Time for an acknowledgment.

I have told more than one person since I began work as a freelance reporter for a weekly North Texas newspaper that I have gone back to my roots. I am covering city council meetings, school board meetings and writing occasional features for the Farmersville Times.

After spending most of my career — spanning nearly 37 years — writing and editing opinion commentary, I entered this gig knowing I could write news stories straight away, checking my bias at the proverbial door. Just stick to the who, what, when, where and why stuff … you know?

My reliance on that skill was put to a test today. I passed it with flying colors, but I was a bit concerned going in to cover the story.

It was a town hall meeting hosted in Rockwall, Texas, by U.S. Rep. Pat Fallon, a Sherman Republican and a self-proclaimed “strong conservative.” I was concerned he would fly off the rails so badly that I couldn’t restrain myself, that I would have to offer some sort of “commentary” in describing what I saw.

You know what? It didn’t happen. Sure, Fallon spouted his conservative mantra about foreign policy, about the 45th POTUS and how great he is. He denigrated Democrats and specifically House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

None of it bothered me. The only that drew an audible response from me (which no one heard) was when he reported that the “mainstream media” didn’t report something to the public. Oh yes. It most certainly did.

I wrote the story and turned it in to my boss.

That all said, I am proud to declare that the story doesn’t contain a hint of bias.

I am proud of myself. Just thought I’d brag a little.