Monthly Archives: August 2021

national news

This pol takes the cake

2 Comments

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

There had been a neck-and-neck battle throughout several states to determine which of them had the nation’s weirdest individual serving as governor.

Then a clear “favorite” emerged just the other day. The “winner” appears to be Gov. Ron DeSantis, Republican of Florida.

I want you to roll this one around for a moment. DeSantis issued a “no mandate” order, meaning that there would be no orders coming from local governments to have folks don masks to fight the COVID outbreak in Florida.

Ahh, but some school superintendents defied that order. They ordered teachers, students and staff to wear masks. De Santis’s response? It was to threaten to withhold the pay for public school educators who chose to defy the governor’s no-mandate edict.

Now I have to ask you: Is that just about the most outrageous thing you’ve heard come from a governor?

The irony, of course, is unbelievable. Florida — along with Texas — is the state with the most outbreaks of the Delta variant of COVID-19. It is logging the nation’s greatest infection rate, hospitalization rate and, oh yeah, death rate.

DeSantis, though, won’t budge from his order banning any additional health restrictions designed to, um, keep people alive. The Sunshine State nitwit says the COVID surge is coming from immigrants crossing the border from Mexico, a clear effort to pin something — anything! — on President Biden. I should mention that DeSantis is a possible 2024 GOP presidential candidate.

To be sure, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, another Republican, has been giving DeSantis a run for the distinction of nation’s top gubernatorial weirdo. Abbott has issued a no-mandate order of his own, only to be challenged by some of the mega school districts in Texas; they were led by Dallas Independent School District Superintendent Michael Hinojosa, who has emerged as my latest hero in this political battle.

Institutions of higher learning in Texas are invoking mandatory COVID testing programs for their students, faculty and staff. That’s a start, although it’s not as in-your-face as the mask mandate that came from the DISD and other big-city public school systems.

I cannot figure this clown DeSantis out. He wants to run for president in 2024, or so we are being led to believe. He’ll be among a large field of Republicans seeking to run for the nation’s highest office.

I am wondering if he is going to use the withhold educator salaries gambit as a campaign ploy. If he does, he is toast. Please, governor … try to justify that bizarre and cruel policy.

I double-dog dare ya.

International news

Did we not prep the Afghan army well?

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

As the world watches the Afghan War lurch forward to what looks like a tragic ending, I cannot get past a thought that has been troubling me since the Taliban began their march toward reasserting control over a country it ruled with ruthlessness and depravity.

My thought is this: What in the world did we do to prepare the Afghan armed forces to cope with the onslaught they are facing? 

We arrived on the battlefield not long after 9/11. President Bush ordered our forces into battle to rid the world of al-Qaeda. We succeeded in removing the Taliban from power then after the terror organization had given their fellow terrorists safe haven from which to attack the United States on 9/11.

President Bush left office in January 2009 and President Obama then ordered the killing of Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaeda mastermind; the SEALs and CIA operatives did the deed on May 1,, 2011.

President Obama left office in January 2017 and Donald J. Trump took over. The fight continued.

Trump left office in January 2021 and now we have President Biden on the watch. Through all those previous administrations, there had been an understanding — or so many of us believed — that our forces were on call to do two things: to engage the enemy on the field and to train and equip the Afghans to take over the fight when we were finished.

Biden adds forces for Afghan evacuation, defends withdrawal decision (msn.com)

President Biden made the call to end our involvement there. We began pulling troops out. The Taliban went on the march. The Afghan military has done a terrible job of defending their country. Reports from the field suggest that regular army troops aren’t fighting, that the bulk of the resistance is coming from militia forces.

We spent tens of billions of dollars training these forces to do something that was expected of them. To defend their nation against a savage enemy. They appear to be failing in that mission.

Do we return in full force? No! We must not! I happen to endorse the decision to leave the Afghanistan battlefield. I am aghast at the slipshod way it is occurring. President Biden is deploying 5,000 additional U.S. troops to assist in the evacuation of Americans and our allies, to get out of harm’s way.

But … my goodness. I am troubled by the lack of effort reportedly being shown by the armed forces we supposedly prepared to defend their nation.

I want our young men and women to come home as much as the next person. However, it saddens me terribly to believe we spent two decades fighting and dying for a nation that is unable — or unwilling — to defend itself.

DC riot

‘Political obituary?’ Do ya think?

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Lindsey Graham is finally — finally! — beginning to talk some sense as it regards the man he once opposed for the presidency and then became one of his go-to suck-ups once he got elected in 2016.

The South Carolina Republican senator said that the Jan. 6 insurrection that POTUS 45 incited could become his “political obituary” if he fails to get over the fact that he lost the 2020 presidential election.

Could become? Really, senator? Do you mean to suggest that the former Insurrectionist in Chief might be able to salvage his reputation if only he were to admit that President Biden won?

I am semi-glad to hear Graham speak some semblance of truth to his former adversary-turned-No. 1-golf buddy. The South Carolinian is still being terribly muted in his assessment of the damage that the former POTUS is delivering to our cherished democracy.

As Newsweek reports: “What I say to him is, ‘Do you want January the 6th to be your political obituary?'” Graham, an ally of the former president, told The New York Times for an article published on Saturday. “‘Because if you don’t get over it, it’s going to be.'”

Lindsey Graham Warns Trump That Jan. 6 Riot May Be His ‘Political Obituary’ (msn.com)

The events of 1/6 are going to stand alone among the hideous events of U.S. political history. To suggest that it wasn’t an insurrection against the democratic process is to ignore with willful prejudice what the entire witnessed on that day.

The former POTUS incited a mob that was spoiling for a chance to do what it did, which was storm Capitol Hill, beat police officers with flags and assorted other weapons, crap on the floor of the Capitol Building, shout their desire to “Hang Mike Pence!” and stop the certification of the Electoral College tally that elected President Biden and Vice President Harris.

The ex-Traitor in Chief has refused to atone for any of it.

Yeah, it’s his “political obituary,” all right.

national news

Biden is still POTUS! Well …

2 Comments
(AP Photo/Jeffrey Phelps)

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

The sun rose in the east this morning. I rolled out of the rack and got my day started per usual.

I glanced at the news and discovered that Joseph R. Biden Jr. is still president of the United States.

Who knew?

Well, it turns out that the My Pillow dude’s prediction that the 45th POTUS would be “reinstated” by day’s end on Friday the 13th didn’t come to pass. Indeed, the Internet has been full of jokes about the “re-inaugural parade” down Pennsylvania Avenue that didn’t take place. Friends and acquaintances have been asking, “Did I miss it?”

I would laugh all this off, blow it off as a sick joke (which it most certainly is) and not give it a second thought, except that too many lunatics among us actually bought into the crap pitched by My Pillow Guy, and the likes of POTUS 45 legal pal Sydney Powell and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani — who’s been disallowed from practicing law in the city he once governed.

Of course, we also have the former Seditionist in Chief continuing to pitch The Big Lie about alleged electoral theft in the 2020 presidential election. Rather than accepting the notion that he was just a temporary occupant of the White House before losing the election, we are hearing about how the ex-Liar in Chief chose to employ astonishing methods to get government officials to overturn the results of the election.

But … he ain’t POTUS; he won’t ever hold the office again. Joe Biden remains on the job.

For that I am so very grateful.

medical news

Fight the ‘common enemy’

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Dr. Anthony Fauci is the man who at this point in our pandemic battle does not need an introduction.

He said the following: “I wish … that people would realize that the common enemy is the virus. Not each other. We’re in this together. And the only way we’re going to conquer this virus is by working together.”

Well, there you have it. This bit of wisdom almost can stand without a single additional thought.

I’ll just offer this brief addition. The backbiting over mask-wearing, government mandates and the alleged “loss of freedom” only weakens our hand as we keep fighting the COVID-19 pandemic.

It is imperative that we start “working together.”

military news

No ‘They died in vain’ rhetoric

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Forgive me if I am getting ahead of myself, but I want to lay down an important marker while the world watches the Taliban take control of Afghanistan provincial capital by provincial capital.

If the worst comes true and the Taliban seize control of the Afghan government, I am going to predict we’re going to hear critics of President Biden’s decision to pull our forces off the battlefield say something akin to this:

“Our young men and women we lost in that war will have died in vain.” 

Can you hear it, too? Of course you can.

I want to say that no matter how this tragedy ends that none of our gallant and brave warriors died “in vain” on the Afghan fields of battle. They died while fighting terrorist monsters who used Afghanistan as a safe haven while they plotted attacks against us. Those attacks culminated in what occurred on 9/11.

Indeed, the “died in vain” mantra we likely will hear from right-wing critics of President Biden’s decision denigrates the service of the thousands of young Americans who perished in defense of our nation and in defense of the Afghan people.

We heard after the Vietnam War that the 58,000 young Americans who died in that conflict did so “in vain.” It enraged me when I heard it then. I lost colleagues in that war. Their deaths, while tragic, occurred as they were upholding the oath they took when they joined the military. That oath compelled them to follow lawful orders and to defend the nation against our enemies.

That is in no way “dying in vain!”

Nor did the Americans who died in Afghanistan die “in vain.” They died heroically and with honor. That is how they must be remembered.

local news

Retirement journey takes us to hot spot

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

My wife and I have been on the most remarkable journey a married couple can take.

We entered the world of full-fledged retirement not many years ago. We had lived for more than two decades in Amarillo, Texas. Then we packed up our belongings, sold our house and settled eventually in what once was a sleepy little burg just northeast of Dallas.

Princeton sits in Collin County. We moved to a city with a declared population of 6,807 residents, according to the 2010 census.

Well, I’ve got a flash for you. That sleepy little burg isn’t so sleepy these days. The 2020 census became known this week and Princeton saw its resident total triple in the past decade.

The population now stands at 18,338 residents. Near as I can tell, even that figure is likely out of date. You see, my wife and I reside in a residential development that continues to grow every single day.

New houses are sprouting up all around us. Cement trucks are pouring slabs to our west and south. Houses are being framed right on top of the newly dried cement. I have no clue what the population of Princeton is at this very moment; I only can conjecture that the census figure is a bit low.

I don’t recall ever in my life moving into what could be considered something of a residential hot spot. I keep hearing stories from Realtors and others in the business about how people selling houses end up being caught in the middle of bidding wars as people seek to move into Collin County, or to Denton County, or to Dallas County, or to Tarrant County.

It’s crazy, man!

It took very little time for us to settle into our new digs. We’re delighted to have gotten here when we did, as the price of homes springing up around are selling for prices that would have scared us away when we were preparing to purchase a home.

The Princeton city manager told me not long after we moved here that the city’s long-range growth plan projects a population of about 115,000 residents in the next three decades. I don’t know if we’ll be around to watch that happen.

What I am watching now, though, is sufficient to make my head spin.

national news

Inauguration 2.0? Hah!

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Today is supposed to be a landmark day in the history of U.S. politics, if you buy into the nuttiness of My Pillow Guy … whose name I will refrain from using in this blog.

The wacko says today is the day POTUS 45 returns to the White House, settles in behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office and resumes his role as Liar/Imbecile/Numbskull/Nitwit/Know-Nothing in Chief.

Do you believe that will happen? Neither do I.

The troublesome aspect of this is that My Pillow Guy has been very specific in predicting this would occur. On this day. Why this day? It might be that it’s Friday the 13th, which in the world of My Pillow Guy might symbolize some sort of poetic justice.

POTUS 45 is not going anywhere near the White House. Likely not ever for as long as he inhabits this good Earth. Where he goes after that, well … no one can control that.

I remain concerned about the level of stupidity and gullibility that remains out there among the voting American public over these claims of “widespread election fraud.”

Read my lips: It did not happen.

President Joe Biden was elected to the nation’s highest office. He is on the job doing what he needs to do to “restore out national soul.”

As for POTUS 45, he and My Pillow Guy are pi**ing into the wind if he harbors any idiotic notion of returning to power.

national news

Biden faces stubborn foe in stupidity

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

President Biden has fought innumerable political battles over his lengthy public service career.

I daresay none of them holds a candle to the stupidity he is facing now that he has attained the nation’s highest political office. It is a remarkably stubborn foe that Biden must defeat.

The problem he faces, though, is determining how he can speak past  the terminally stupid among those who continue to insist that he didn’t actually win the 2020 presidential election.

Of course he did. He won it bigly. President Biden garnered 7 million more ballots than the other guy. His Electoral College victory, while not a landslide, mirrored the total that the other guy won when he captured the presidency in 2016.

And yet, the president seeks to persuade all of America that he has a plan to jumpstart the economy, restore our role as the world’s leading nation, that we need to battle the existential threat posed by climate change and, oh yeah, rid us of the pandemic that at the moment is raging anew.

Only a little more than half the country is ready to buy in. The rest of us, that significant minority of Americans? Many of them are wallowing in the stupidity uttered by their hero, the defeated — and twice-impeached — former POTUS.

Actually, the impediment to President Biden’s effort to rebuild trust in our government involves more than just stupidity. It includes a dangerous dose of evil intent among those who keep fomenting The Big Lie about the 2020 election. Stupidity and treasonous tendencies comprise a dangerous combination.

So it is against those headwinds that Joe Biden is struggling to repair the wreckage brought by his immediate predecessor. All those fights during his 36 years in the U.S. Senate and his eight years as vice president during the Barack Obama administration seem today to be almost quaint.

Stupidity is proving to be the most stubborn foe of all.

legal news

AG Garland, you need to look into POTUS 45’s plot

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Merrick Garland has long been considered a fair-minded, reasonable, rational man who isn’t an overly partisan public official.

Thus, the U.S. attorney general can be counted on to do the right thing even in the face of intense political pressure.

I cannot possibly know this to be true, but I am willing to bet that AG Garland is getting a snootful of pressure to investigate the shenanigans orchestrated by the former president of the United States. They deal with POTUS 45’s relentless efforts to overturn what has been called “the most secure election in U.S. history.”

Is there an effort here to undermine the government? To subvert the democratic process? To actually mount what has been called a coup by the former POTUS to snatch the presidency back from the guy who defeated him in the 2020 election?

If there was a coup in the works, my understanding of the word “treason” tells me that POTUS 45 is guilty as the dickens of seeking to plot against the government he took an oath to defend and protect.

I don’t know what Merrick Garland will do. Nor do I know even if he is talking behind closed doors at the Justice Department about whether he should investigate the former POTUS. My hunch is that he has had that conversation with his top deputies.

Presidents are supposed to temporary occupants of the office they take. That is the case with President Biden’s immediate predecessor. His insistence on fomenting the Big Lie about phony vote fraud allegations tells me he does not believe that to be the case.

Merrick Garland has some studying — and perhaps some serious soul-searching — ahead of him.