Monthly Archives: January 2022

DC riot

Trump ‘unfit for office’

Jeez, do ya think? The White House press secretary today declared that Donald John Trump is unfit for office — I’ll presume any public office, not just the presidency — after he declared he might pardon the traitors who stormed the Capitol Building on 1/6 if by some hideous fluke he returns to the presidency.

So it was that press flack Jen Psaki today called out the ex-POTUS for his outrageous comment delivered at a rally in Texas.

“It’s just a reminder of how unfit he is for office,” Psaki said of Trump’s comments. “It’s telling that even some of his closest allies have rejected those remarks as inappropriate in the days since.”

How in the name of all that is sacred and holy can anyone condone the actions of those who committed that hideous attack on our democratic process? Yet that is what Trump is doing by suggesting that the defendants are being treated “unfairly.” Unfairly? What the hell?

This man continues to ratchet up the danger he poses to our democratic system of government with every lunatic utterance that spews from his foul mouth.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

State news

Paxton targets Gohmert?

Ken Paxton must be feeling the heat from the Looney Tunes wing of the Texas Republican Party, aka Paxton’s “base” of support. Why? Because he reportedly is taking out ads attacking Rep. Louie Gohmert, one of three GOP challengers to the AG in this year’s primary.

The attorney general and the East Texas congressman figure to carve up the radical right-wing voters of the GOP while they battle for Paxton’s office. Paxton reportedly has taken out some ads that are going after Gohmert.

To be brutally candid, I don’t give a damn about either of these guys, other than I want Paxton removed from the AG’s office. He is an embarrassment to the state I call home and I want him gone from public life. He has been under indictment for felony security fraud almost since the time he took office in 2015; he has yet to go to trial. He’s also angered some of his top legal assistants, who have quit and blown the whistle on what they allege is illegal activity within the AG’s office; the FBI is investigating the allegations.

He has two other serious challengers: former Texas Supreme Court Justice Eva Guzman and Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush.

Polling shows Paxton continuing to run fairly strong among the four candidates, a thought that makes my blood boil. Gohmert, though, figures to peel away enough of the goofball vote to possibly force a runoff between the top two finishers in the primary.

My idea of a political perfection includes a scenario in which the top two do not include Paxton. That ain’t likely to happen. If only …

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Anger makes me angry

Anger is an emotion that fills me with — yep, that’s right — anger, lots of anger.

I get angry with myself for feeling as angry as I do at times, particularly over matters or individuals I cannot control. The current political climate swirling around us provides me with the latest example of how angry I have become.

I am angry at the politicians and their sycophants who continue to keep The Big Lie alive and kicking. The Big Lie, as you know, purports to suggest that Donald Trump actually won the 2020 presidential election. He didn’t. He lost it bigly.

He came to Texas this past weekend and proclaimed, among many falsehoods, that the “election system is corrupt.” Dammit to hell, anyway! It isn’t! When he says such a thing, he defames the good men and women associated with both major political parties who take an oath to do their jobs with integrity and honesty and then follow that oath to the letter.

That makes me angry as hell. However, I also get angry with myself because the only weapon I have is this blog in which I can express my anger. I want to make a difference. I want this anger to sink into the thick skulls of the individuals who ignite these hard feelings. It doesn’t. I feel as though I am talking to the chair on which I am sitting at this moment.

My anger is visceral these days in a way I have never experienced. I find myself using harsh language when referencing the ex-POTUS. So help me, I never have used this kind of language when referring to POTUSes who never got my vote.

I want the anger to pass. I fear that the only way that’ll happen will be for the man who lights the fuse to disappear. I just will have to deal with my anger and seek to avoid getting so damn angry at myself.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Sports news

AFC vs. NFC? No contest!

I have this need to disclose my professional football bias. I am a diehard fan of the American Football Conference, which once was known as the American Football League.

Of all the 55 Super Bowls that have been played, I have cheered precisely one time for the National Football Conference team to win the big game. In 2010, that honor fell to the New Orleans Saints, who gave their city the lift it needed after it had endured the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina five years earlier.

The Saints beat the Indianapolis Colts 31-17 in the game played in Miami.

I tend to favor the underdog. When the AFL came into being in the early 1960s, I gravitated to the young league. I enjoyed its razzle-dazzle, high-scoring brand of football. Then the leagues — the AFL and the NFL — announced plans to merge. The pro football championship would be decided in a title game between the leagues. I cheered mightily for the Kansas City Chiefs in that first game against the Green Bay Packers and for the Oakland Raiders in the second game against the Packers; both AFL teams got clobbered.

Then the New York Jets scored the big upset in Super Bowl III against the Baltimore Colts and the Chiefs came back in Super Bowl IV to manhandle the Minnesota Vikings.

My bias remains intact this year, with the Cincinnati Bengals waiting for the winner of the 49ers-Rams game this evening.

And so … may the better team win and I do hope it’s the representative of the AFC.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news, medical news

Pandemic paranoia?

Paranoia is no fun when you are dealing with a deadly disease and the potential — no matter how remote it might seem — of being sickened by it.

I now shall explain.

I came down three days ago with a head cold. Classic symptoms: a little scratchy throat, a bit of a cough, runny nose, sneezing. You know, the usual. But wait! My mind started racing. Was it COVID-19, the virus that is still making people sick, sending them to the hospital, forcing medical personnel to roll out the ventilators, putting people into medically induced comas?

No. It wasn’t that. I sought to get a test. I couldn’t find a place to obtain one immediately. So, I waited it out. I’m well now. I am back to my usual effervescent self.

This is one of the consequences of the coronavirus pandemic that is annoying me to no end. I know what a head cold feels like. I’ve been getting ’em for, oh, more than seven decades. 

It kinda reminds me of when someone cuts me off on the street. My initial instinct used to be to lay on my horn, possibly shout a bad word or two and maybe offer an obscene gesture. No more, man! This is Texas! You never know who’s got a firearm with him. Too many damn road-rage episodes are being reported and too many of them are ending tragically.

Am I paranoid when I drive my truck? Not really … but I could get that way.

No, I am not paranoid because I caught a three-day head cold. It’s just that the killer virus has given me pause.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

DC riot

Trump reaches for bottom

(AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Donald Trump operates with a bottomless trove of outrageous pronouncements from which he uncovers ways to make declarations that are profoundly offensive and reprehensible.

This weekend, the 45th POTUS did it again. He ventured to Texas to declare that he might — if hell freezes over and he is elected president in 2024 — offer unconditional pardons to the traitors who stormed the Capitol Building on 1/6 and sought to block the certification of the 2020 presidential election.

That’s right. He would pardon the men and women who threatened to kill Vice President Mike Pence and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, injured scores of police officers, defecated on the floor of the Capitol and vandalized the hall of government by smashing through windows.

There is a reason this blog never has refused to print the words “President” and “Trump” consecutively. It is because your friendly blogger cannot recognize this lawless, corrupt, amoral, profane individual as my head of state, head of government and commander in chief.

For this moronic dipsh** to suggest he might offer pardons to those who — at his incitement — stormed the Capitol Building and sought to dismember our democratic process is so utterly beyond the pale that it boggles my understanding how any sensible human being can cling to the crap that flows from this guy’s mouth.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

legal news

Here come the epithets

President Biden’s pledge to nominate a black woman to become the next Supreme Court associate justice has produced a highly predictable, and thoroughly reprehensible, round of criticism from those who suggest that Biden is implementing an “affirmative action” policy to fill this key judicial slot.

It’s all pure crap.

Justice Stephen Breyer is retiring soon from the court. President Biden has pledged to find a candidate with impeccable credentials, high ethical standards, legal brilliance and a record of sterling, stellar achievement.

That the individual he selects is an African American woman should be of little consequence with regard to the qualifications required of the next Supreme Court justice.

You can count me as one American patriot who believes the president will have no difficulty finding a supremely qualified candidate among the pool of individuals from whom he will choose.

As for the critics who will question whether the next SCOTUS nominee is smart enough or has the required experience, I also am certain they will be revealed as possessing a racial bias that has no place in determining the fitness of the person to be considered.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Sports news

Hail the GOAT!

Most of us who follow football — even a little bit — understand that it is a game of numbers. You know, yards gained, yards lost, interceptions, tackles, penalty yards, sacks, punting yardage. Whatever …

Tom Brady reportedly is retiring after 22 seasons of professional football becoming arguably the greatest quarterback of all time.

I want to focus on a particular number as we ponder the effect this guy had on the game he played with excellence and precision.

The number is 198. What does that number signify?

It is the number players selected ahead of Brady in the NFL draft of 2000. Now think for a moment if you’re a general manager who had the chance to select this young man what you might have thought after he won all those Super Bowls and led the New England Patriots and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to all that glory.

One hundred ninety-eight players got into the NFL ahead of the GOAT. Granted, not every team drafting in that sequence needed a quarterback. Still, Tom Brady quite unexpectedly became the gold standard for winning in the National Football League.

The Patriots drafted him out of the University of Michigan even though they had a decent QB calling signals for them. Drew Bledsoe then got hurt; Brady replaced him on the field. And the rest, as they, is history.

I know, we had that “Deflategate” matter involving the footballs that were allegedly tampered with by the Patriots, giving Brady some sort of advantage over his foes. Phooey.

Now, let’s look at some other numbers.

Seven Super Bowls; five Super Bowl MVP awards; more than 84,000 yards passing; 624 touchdown passes; three league MVP awards. I won’t go on. You get the picture.

The guy was a stellar athlete. He possesses an incomparable work and dietetic regimen that has allowed him to play the game at a high level until the very end of his playing days. He led the NFL in passing yards at the age of 44, for crying out loud.

Perhaps, in my mind, the greatest measure of this guy’s greatness can be found in this episode. He left the Patriots after the 2019 season and joined the Buccaneers. The Patriots, who had won six Super Bowls with Brady at QB, missed the playoffs that year; the Bucs went on to win the Big Game, beating the defending champs, the Kansas City Chiefs.

Oh, Brady did that at the age of 43.

Yep. This guy is the greatest of all time.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Trump ‘shouldn’t lead the GOP’

Asa Hutchinson has just become persona non grata in the cult-following world of Donald J. Trump. Why? Because the Republican Arkansas governor spoke the blunt truth about Trump’s ability to lead his party, let alone to become president of the United States of America.

God forbid the latter from occurring.

Hutchinson leads the Republican Governors Association and he said this weekend that Trump is unfit for the office he once held. “I do not believe Trump is the one to lead our party and our country again, as president,” Hutchinson told Insider on the sidelines of the NGA Winter Meeting in Washington, DC.

He was responding, apparently, to a video that’s gone viral in which Trump declares himself to be the “45th and 47th president.” Good gawd.

Hutchinson now is likely to become a target of the Trump cultists/wackos/idiots who cling to the notion that the former Idiot in Chief is going to seek the highest office … yet again.

In truth, though, Gov. Hutchinson is speaking realistically about the absolute worthlessness that Donald Trump brings to any reasonable or rational debate that needs to occur.

Donald Trump should not lead the country again, says the Republican leader of the National Governors Association (msn.com)

His message will pass through the vacuous skulls of millions of Trumpkins, if you’ll pardon the pithy reference, like sh** through the proverbial goose.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Comply, or else!

Quiz time: What do you do when a duly constituted governing authority tells you to talk to them about a serious policy matter?

Answer: You do what they tell you to do; you show up under threat of prosecution for contempt of whichever authority has issued the summons.

So it must be for those who get subpoenaed by the House select committee looking into the 1/6 insurrection. The panel is going full force against those who might know details about what happened before, during and after the riot that sought to stop the 2020 presidential election result certification.

If I were to get a summons from those folks, well, dang … I would show up and tell ’em what I know. They won’t call me, as I was sitting in the cheap seats that day watching it unfold on TV. It was a frightening event to witness, even from afar.

Donald Trump’s minions keep resisting. Their Republican allies in Congress keep giving them a pass, even though they have declared in prior congressional investigations — those chaired by the GOP in search of dirt on Democrats — that anyone who gets subpoenaed must comply or face prosecution. Not now? C’mon!

We cannot choose which authorities to obey and which ones to stiff-arm. The House committee is a legitimate governing authority and those who get these orders must obey them … or else.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com