Monthly Archives: November 2021

national news

Standing with POTUS

First of all, I want to stipulate that I am not a fair-weather fan of President Biden.

Yes, I read the polling data. I am acutely aware that his approval rating among American voters has slipped badly since about the time of the U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan. Inflation has harmed the president’s standing. We cannot seem to shake the pandemic and we cannot declare our “independence” from the disease, which Biden projected we could do by the Fourth of July.

However, I voted for Joe Biden with as much enthusiasm as I have had for any presidential candidate for whom I have voted since 1972, when I cast my first vote for the leader of the Free World.

The man’s current difficulty will not force me to turn against him. I stand with him.

We are on the verge of receiving a big legislative push if Congress gets around to approving the Build Back Better package that President Biden’s team presented some months ago. Congress already has approved the infrastructure bill designed to repair our nation’s roads, bridges, airports, seaports and Internet availability. That is no small deal, man.

The economy is continuing to rebound from its pandemic low. Do I worry about inflation? Yes, I do! Am I a huge fan of Biden’s decision to pull oil out of our Strategic Petroleum Reserve? Not really. I don’t consider the SPR to be an inflation-fighting weapon; I consider it to be a safety net in the event of a severe shortage of fossil fuel. If the SPR flow helps stem the rising price of that fuel, then I suppose I can grit my teeth and back it.

Biden is committed to fighting climate change, which is a welcome change from the previous administration’s decision to turn its back on those efforts.

My support of President Biden is unflinching even in the face of crises. We elect someone to handle these issues as they arise. He has assembled a competent team of political pros and assorted experts. I am going to stand with them as they grapple with these crises.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

legal news, national news

Racial justice: Has it arrived?

One jury verdict does not necessarily signal a trend, although some thinkers and analysts are trying to ascribe a trend to the Georgia jury that convicted three white men of murdering a black man.

The trend that some are asking: Does this verdict signal the arrival of racial justice in America?

Let’s hold on here. Ahmad Arbery was jogging through a white neighborhood when he was accosted by three men who seemingly though that Arbery, who was black, didn’t belong there. One of the men shot Arbery to death and that individual, Travis McMichael, was convicted of all the charges associated with the killing.

The jury, comprising 11 white people and one black individual, delivered a stern warning to anyone thinking they can hide behind a “self-defense law.”

What about the racial justice question? If it spells the end of verdicts that acquit white people of killing a black person on flimsy evidence, the answer is “no,” we don’t have racial justice. Nor do we have it if a jury acquits a black individual if he kills white victims, such as what occurred in 1995 when a mostly black jury acquitted O.J. Simpson of murdering his former wife and her friend.

I am not going to ascribe an abundance of significance to the Georgia jury’s verdict. I welcome it, but let’s wait a long while before we attach any historical significance to what the jury has ruled.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news, medical news

Thank you, first responders

This is the second consecutive Thanksgiving we are celebrating under the threat of a killer virus.

I am going to offer a brief — but most assuredly heartfelt — word of thanks and gratitude for those who answer the call when people are stricken.

I live next door to a neo-natal nurse who I am certain has seen her share of heartache. A law enforcement officer shares her home with her and he, too, is called upon to respond to those who need help.

They have earned our gratitude and our thanks.

I hear about parades taking place today around the country that are dedicated to saluting first responders. They enforce the law, respond to fires, they work in ambulances and assorted rescue vehicles. They are neighbors who lend a hand for those nearby who, for whatever reason, are under stress and duress.

They rush to people’s sides. They hold their hands. They tend to their needs. They do so out of dedication to the careers they have worked hard to pursue; that dedication carries a serious implication, which is that they must tend to others’ needs.

In the spirit of the holiday, I want to be among the millions of Americans who thank these individuals for the work they do selflessly and with dedication to caring for our well-being.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news

What if a guy did this?

Eddie Bernice Johnson has endorsed the candidacy of a freshman member of the Texas delegation to the U.S. House of Representatives.

Rep. Jasmine Crockett today announced she is running for Rep. Johnson’s seat, which will become vacant upon Johnson’s retirement after a 30-year career in the House. Rep. Johnson, though, set down what I think is a peculiar marker for the person she wanted to succeed her.

Johnson said the other day it had to be a woman. Hmm. I am going to nitpick just a bit here.

What if a male member of the House of Reps had declared he wanted a dude to succeed him? What do you suppose would be the community reaction to that? My guess is that there would be hell to pay. That the media, feminists, civil rights groups would be clamoring loudly that the congressman is, um, discriminating against women.

The Texas Tribune reported: “A vibrant congressional district like TX-30 needs a representative in Washington with high energy, a passion to fight for us, shrewd intelligence, leadership, and an incessant drive,” Johnson said. “After proudly serving the City of Dallas and Southern sector for 30 years in the U.S. House of Representatives, I firmly believe that Texas State Representative Jasmine Crockett is just the person we need in Congress at this critical time.”

Look, I am not going to waste much more energy on this, other than to suggest that there seems to exist a remarkable double standard when a female member of Congress can insist that her successor be of the same gender without a hint of blowback.

But if a man were to do this? Oh, brother.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news, State news

Fruitcake fringe loses an AG candidate

Well, now. It looks as though Louie Gohmert is going to have the fruitcake fringe of the Republican Party electorate to himself as he challenges Ken Paxton in next year’s GOP primary for Texas attorney general.

Why is that? Another GOP fruitcake, Freedom Caucus member state Rep. Matt Krause of Fort Worth is going to run instead for Tarrant County district attorney. He had sought to run in the 2022 primary for Texas AG, but switched races.

Gohmert is still in. He joins Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush and former Texas Supreme Court Justice Eva Guzman as challengers to the felony indicted Paxton, who is awaiting trial in state court on a charge of securities fraud.

Bush and Guzman are campaigning specifically against the corruption that Paxton brought with him to the AG’s office in 2015. I don’t know what U.S. Rep. Gohmert’s platform will be; he might want to push Paxton even farther to the right than he already stands.

There might be more entries, given the trouble that keeps swirling around Paxton. The FBI is conducting an independent investigation into allegations of corruption with his office; several top legal assistants quit earlier this year while citing allegations of improper behavior by the attorney general. Imagine that, will ya?

The waters are still roiling.

It’s gonna be fun to watch this race play out.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

legal news

Who killed JFK?

Many mainstream media observers have talked over the past couple of days while commemorating the 58th year since President Kennedy’s murder in Dallas about the right-wing conspiracy theories that permeate our politics to this day.

They have noted the John Birch Society’s brochures printed at the time of JFK’s visit to Dallas that accused the president of surrendering U.S. sovereignty to the United Nations, of appointing “anti-Christians” to government posts. It’s pretty standard right-wing wacko stuff.

Indeed, in the time leading up to the visit to Texas in 1963, there was considerable concern expressed by those close to the president about the perceived threats to him from the far-right wing of political thought.

However, let’s hold on and take a brief look at what happened on that day.

Who killed the president on that glorious Dallas day as he rode in the motorcade through downtown en route to the Dallas Trade Mart where he was to deliver a speech that afternoon?

The cops arrested a card-carrying Marxist named Lee Harvey Oswald. He was seen in the book depository building and captured later at the Texas Theater after he killed a Dallas police officer, J.D. Tippitt.

It seems, to me at least, that the authorities were looking the other way when this loser Oswald managed to change the course of world history with three rifle shots from the sixth floor of the Dallas office structure.

Why don’t the media talk about that tragic twist of fate?

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

State news

Waiting for ‘the beef’

The latest round of public opinion polling on the 2022 Texas governor’s race sent a glaring message to me.

It goes like this: Matthew McConaughey polls stronger against Gov. Greg Abbott than Beto O’Rourke. Why? Because Texans don’t know a damn thing about McConaughey other than he won a best actor Oscar not many years ago for his role in “Dallas Buyers Club.”

O’Rourke has been on the national political stage since 2018 when he nearly defeated Sen. Ted Cruz in the race for Cruz’s U.S. Senate seat. Abbott, too, is now a well-known and highly chronicled political figure.

McConaughey? I don’t even know if he’s going to run for governor as a Democrat or Republican. He has been playing coy about the party under which he would run.

Indeed, the actor — a native of Texas who lives in the Austin area — has been coy about his views on an array of issues: immigration, public school curriculum, abortion, voting rights, gun violence and gun owners’ rights, climate change, energy production … stop me before I go bananas, OK?

I strongly suspect that when — or if — McConaughey starts laying out some specifics we are going to see some movement in those polls as it regards whether he stands a chance of becoming the state’s next governor.

For now, Texans seem to consider McConaughey a bit of a mystery man, albeit a dashing mystery man.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news

Is the SUV color that vital?

The media keep repeating something that has me wondering about its relevance and importance.

An SUV plowed through a Christmas festival crowd in Waukesha, Wisc., over the weekend. Five people died. Dozens more were injured. Many of the injured are children and several of those children are in ICU and are listed in critical condition. Our hearts break for the victims and pray that the injured recover.

But why are the media reporting constantly that the SUV is a red vehicle? “A red SUV drove at a high rate of speed … “ And so it goes.

Is the color of the vehicle so relevant that it matters in reporting on this human tragedy? Someone needs to explain it to me. Please.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news, political news, State news

Texas’s newest residents get stiffed

Texas is going to get two more seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. Why? Because our state grew significantly during the past 10 years.

The population boom was fueled by more African-Americans, Hispanics and Asians flocking to the state. The word is that these folks generally vote Democratic. So, it was believed that the state’s changing demography was going to make the state more, um, divided politically.

Well, the Legislature took care of that by gerrymandering the new congressional and legislative districts to ensure that the Republican Party maintains its chokehold on power.

The Legislature takes command of the redistricting effort every decade. The 2020 census shows the state achieving additional power in Congress with those two new seats. However, Republicans are big winners, given the way the Legislature reconfigured all those boundaries.

Collin County, where I now reside, was turned into an even heavier GOP-friendly place; Collin County voted narrowly for Donald Trump in 2020, but would have voted significantly more for the ex-POTUS had the new borders been in effect.

I am scratching my noodle on this one. Is this the way “representative democracy” is supposed to work?

I think not.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news

Fox News takes needed hit

The liars at Fox News have been given notice by two of their contributors, Jonah Goldberg and Stephen Hayes, that they — the contributors — will not tolerate the lies broadcast by Fox News talking head Tucker Carlson.

Goldberg and Hayes said they cannot stand with the network after it broadcast Carlson’s special on the 1/6 insurrection. Carlson called it “Patriot Purge,” and according to Goldberg and Hayes — two leading conservative thinkers and columnists — the program was full of lies, distortions and unfounded conspiracy rumors. They won’t be part of a network that allows such lying to go unchallenged.

Good for them.

To be honest, I didn’t watch it. I don’t need to watch what I know it contains. I have heard Carlson spew much of the trash I know he poured into the production of “Patriot Purge.”

According to The Wrap: Carlson’s “Patriot Purge” has drawn sharp criticism since its launch, with the Anti-Defamation League calling on Fox News to cancel it. “Let’s call this what it is: an abject, indisputable lie, and a blatant attempt to rewrite history,” ADL CEO and National Director Jonathan A. Greenblatt said in a letter addressed to Fox Corporation CEO Lachlan Murdoch. Greenblatt expressed alarm that the “false narrative and wild conspiracy theories” presented in “Patriot Purge” could “sow further division” and possibly “animate violence.”

Fox News has given itself ample reason to be ashamed of itself. Carlson’s phony documentary is just one more example of the lies that pour forth from a network that once boasted to be “fair and balanced.”

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com