Monthly Archives: September 2021

crime news

Dog is on the hunt!

A part of me — I am not sure how much of me — kinda/sorta supports a notion put forth on social media about Dog the Bounty Hunter’s search for a “person of interest” in the highly publicized Gabby Petito homicide case.

This person writes: If he finds him, I’m not paying taxes anymore!

Dog the Bounty Hunter, aka Duane Chapman, has joined the search for Brian Laundrie, who has been missing for several days in the wake of the death of his fiance, Petito, whose body was found earlier this month in Grand Teton National Park, Wyo.

State police have looked for Laundrie; so has the FBI; local police agencies are on the hunt, too.

In comes the “reality TV” celebrity, Dog the Bounty Hunter, who reports that Laundrie is alive and that he — Dog — is close to rounding him up.

What in the world would Dog do that government agencies wouldn’t or couldn’t do to find Laundrie?

Indeed, if Dog the Bounty Hunter collars Laundrie, there might be some others who will endorse the notion of refusing to pay taxes, some of which pays for law enforcement agencies to do the kind of thing that a celebrity with an ugly mullet is doing.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news

11 more subpoenas signal the panel is getting serious

The U.S. House Select Committee that is looking at the why, the what and the who of 1/6 is a serious panel that needs to be taken seriously.

The committee has issued 11 more subpoenas aimed at corralling key aides and advisers to Donald J. Trump. It wants to know what they knew about the events leading to the riot that exploded on Capitol Hill.

The 45th POTUS is going to try to prevent them from answering the demands from the panel. He won’t succeed, given that he no longer possesses any presidential power of the type he wielded in keeping other key aides from talking to those who examined the man’s time as president.

Too bad, Mr. Former Liar in Chief. He now is just one more corrupt private citizen who is being forced to face down those who seek the truth behind what happened on the day POTUS 45 exhorted the rioters to storm the Capitol.

I am guessing the 11 subpoenas we saw issued today will be just a fraction of the number of demands yet to come. Good hunting, select committee members.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news

Bring it, Dog!

If Dog the Bounty Hunter is able to bring Brian Laundrie in alive, I guess I am going to give the dude his due as a celebrity sleuth.

They brought in the fellow aka Duane Chapman to help find Laundrie, a “person of interest” in the death of Gabby Petito, who was Laundrie’s fiance.

I have suggested that Laundrie is dead. That they’ll find him in a gator’s gut eventually, given that he had been hiding — supposedly — in a Florida nature preserve.

But … what do I know? Not a damn thing if we’re going to believe Dog the Bounty Hunter.

Hey, I usually just blow this clown off — that would be Dog — as he traipses around on TV looking for bad guys. This time, if he delivers a notorious person of interest, I guess I’ll just have to give him all the respect he deserves.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

military news

Back off … chumps!

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There’s something off-putting about watching politicians grill battle-hardened military men in search of what I consider to be cheap political points.

That’s what I saw today as three distinguished warriors sat before a Senate committee to be questioned about their role in the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Let me be clear about a key point. I subscribe wholly to the notion that civilian authority must remain central to the conduct of our military policy. However, when I watch politicians seek to dress down men of valor, well … it turns me off.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, a former Army four-star general, was one of the targets of the chumps serving on the Senate panel; so was Army Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; same for Marine Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, commanding officer of Central Command, which has coordinates all military activity in Afghanistan and the surrounding region.

Sen. Marsha Blackburn, a Tennessee Republican, sought to get Milley to admit whether he spoke to authors of books that have looked critically at the last days of the Donald Trump administration. Milley answered “yes” that he had spoken to the authors. Blackburn then asked whether he supported what they wrote. Milley said he hasn’t read any of the books.

That wasn’t good enough for Sen. Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican, who then asked whether Milley was too busy being interviewed by the likes of Bob Woodward and Robert Costa to pay attention to the details of the Afghan War withdrawal. Hawley, ever the showman, then demanded that Milley and Austin resign their posts.

Ridiculous!

All three of these men have served their country with honor, valor and distinction. Milley has taken heat because of reporting in the book “Peril” that he gave his counterpart in China a heads up in the event of a potential attack by the United States in the waning days of the Trump administration. Good grief! He acted nobly as he sought to protect the United States against potential catastrophe!

Politics fuels everything these days. Hawley wants to run for president. He wants to make waves within the GOP so he takes this opportunity to question the integrity of genuine Americans heroes.

Disgusting.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

medical news

‘Public health’: all-inclusive

Let’s visit the term “public health” for a moment.

The way I understand the term, it refers to the health and well-being of an entire community, a city, state, nation. That means everyone, as in the public!

Thus, when a government entity issues an order that seeks to protect the public’s health, I harbor no reticence about following that order. It means that those who represent us are trying to protect us. As in you and me.

I keep hearing this mantra about “personal choice” regarding whether we should be required to wear masks outside of our home. The woman formerly known as Bruce Jenner spoke to that issue this morning on “The View.” Jenner said it is her “choice” to wear a mask, or to maintain social distance, or to get a vaccine against the COVID-19 virus.

Umm. No. It isn’t just an individual’s choice. Not when the illness that the individual might contract affects others around them. Thus, the public’s health becomes paramount in this discussion.

President Biden is issuing orders left and right to businesses, to those who work for the federal government and others. He wants them to mask up. He requires them to get vaccinated against a virus that is still killing Americans daily.

I am going to stand with those who want to protect me against a virus that could kill me. Is it any sweat off my back to mask up? Hell no! It isn’t!

As for the vaccine. I intend to line up as soon as possible to get the booster the feds have approved.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

‘GOP’ takes new meaning

(Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Attention, my friends in the Republican Party.

Your political organization, once known as the Grand Old Party, has acquired a new moniker. It’s called the Grubby Obstructionist Party.

Yes, the party that once was able to govern effectively working with Democrats in Congress and the White House, has become a party intent on furthering some nitwit political agenda.

The GOP has decided to block moves to bump up the debt ceiling. It won’t allow the nation to pay its bills. It is going to block President Biden’s Build Back Better legislative package — which would be paid out over several years. It is now threatening to shut down the government … again! Why? Because its intention is to do harm to a duly elected president.

Democrats are scrambling at this moment to figure out a way to work around their GOP colleagues, the same colleagues who saw no problem with boosting the debt ceiling when one of their guys was in the White House and when they controlled the legislative branch of government.

Now it’s changed. Except that it hasn’t really changed. The obligations are the same now as they always have been.

The Grubby Obstructionist Party — whose U.S. Senate leader Mitch McConnell has said the debt ceiling must be increased but won’t allow his Senate GOP caucus to be part of it — has shown itself to be unfit to govern.

Disgraceful.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news

Reagan assailant goes free? Oh, my!

You may consider me as one American who believes John Hinckley does not deserve an unconditional release from custody.

I mean, all he did  was shoot President Reagan in March 1981, damn near killing him, while grievously wounding others in a melee outside the Washington Hilton hotel. One of his other victims was White House press secretary James Brady, who never recovered from the grievous brain injury he suffered; Brady has since died of complications suffered from that shooting.

U.S. President Reagan’s shooter John Hinckley wins unconditional release (msn.com)

A jury would acquit Hinckley on grounds that he was insane when he did the deed. He spent decades in an institution. Then he was released in the custody of his mother, who has since died.

Now a judge has said he can walk free among the rest of us, without condition.

Bad call, judge.

The late president’s daughter, Patti Davis, has argued that Hinckley has shown no remorse and shouldn’t be allowed to roam free. I agree with her.

If the assailant had demonstrated any actual remorse, then might be different. I am unaware of anything he has said or done since the trial to suggest any feeling of the sort over what he did.

The entire nation needs to keep a sharp and vigilant eye on this individual once he is free of the restrictions under which he has lived.

Just one more point. Hinckley is now 66 years of age, meaning that he is still capable of doing harm to others.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

medical news

Time for good COVID thoughts

It is time to send some good COVID thoughts around the world.

I keep hearing bits and pieces of good news regarding the killer virus.

Hospitalization rates are falling. Same for death rates. Vaccine distribution is ramping up. Federal drug regulators have approved Pfizer’s vaccine for children ages 5 to 11.

Are we turning the corner yet again on this virus?

I trust you remember a time about six months ago when a new president took office, declared war against the virus and then promised to be “independent” of the killer by the Fourth of July, aka Independence Day. You get the symmetry, right?

Well, it didn’t happen. Variants kept popping up. The delta variant has proven to be the most troublesome.

Now, though, we’re getting dribs and drabs of good news.

Again! Once more!

Is this the actual beginning of the end to the virus that has killed nearly 700,000 Americans?

Please let it be so.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Will No. 45 be nominated?

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Some pundits/commentators/thinkers I respect a great deal are throwing a major scare into this old man’s body.

They are suggesting that at this moment Donald J. Trump is the “favorite” to be nominated by the Republican Party to run for president in 2024.

Let’s ponder that for just a brief moment.

The House of Representatives impeached him twice. The first time was for soliciting political favors from a foreign government; a clear violation of the law, not to mention the Constitution. The second time was for inciting an insurrection against the government as Congress sought to ratify the Electoral College returns from the 2020 presidential election; another clearly defined “high crime and misdemeanor.”

He skated twice because not enough Senate Republicans had enough courage to stand by their oaths of office and convict him.

The former POTUS has hijacked the GOP. He is holding it hostage to his whims and machinations. He is the man, the myth, the legend in his own mind.

He is making noises about wanting to run again.

If he does and if the GOP is flat-out stupid enough to nominate this clown once again — after all the damage he has inflicted on the government he once vowed to protect — then, ladies and gents, we are in far more trouble than I ever imagined.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

International news, national news, State news

Our border isn’t ‘open’

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How many times do I have to say this: We do not have “open borders’? 

That is the mantra being recited time and again by far right wing opponents of President Biden, who continue to insist that our borders — particularly our southern border — have been flung wide open for anyone to pour into the country.

Let’s review what just happened along the border with Mexico near Del Rio, Texas.

Thousands of Haitians congregated under an international bridge. They were fleeing corruption in their country as well as fleeing the destruction brought by a killer earthquake.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott deployed Department of Public Safety officers to the border to assist Customs and Border Patrol agents in managing the chaotic scene. U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials were on it, too.

Now the crowd is gone. The migrants have been sent back to Haiti, sent to third countries or are being processed to achieve legal immigrant status.

Is that a signal that we have an “open border”? No. It isn’t!

Our borders are no more “open” than they have been during the terms of Donald Trump, Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush, Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter … I’ll stop there.

Yet the critics of Joe Biden seize on the chaos brought forth and are offering the canard about “open borders” as a weapon to use against him. One of those critics, former Housing Secretary Ben Carson, writes in Newsweek, “We are encountering more people at our southern border than any other time in the last 21 years. Two months in a row, the numbers exceeded 200,000; in August 2021, the numbers represented a 317 percent increase over August of last year.”

Biden Has Effectively Opened Our Border. He Is Once Again Vindicating Trump | Opinion (msn.com)

OK, Dr. Carson. How are they responding to that influx? We aren’t just letting ’em pour in, doc! Get a grip here.

Yes, the Biden team needs to do better. Yes, they need to make their response more efficient. And, yes, we cannot tolerate the sight of mounted CBP officers herding Haitians like cattle as they seek shelter from the misery they are fleeing.

However, the border isn’t “open.”

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com