Monthly Archives: April 2022

religious news

Let the coach pray

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This is one of those issues that makes my public-policy heartburn flare up, so here goes a shot at trying to make sense of something.

Joseph Kennedy was a football coach at Bremerton (Wash.) High School. He once knelt in prayer at the 50-yard line, thanking the Almighty for keeping the players safe. A few players then joined him, voluntarily. The players and the coach would pray after games.

Then word got out that he was doing it. News spread around the school district. I guess someone took issue with it, contending it violated the First Amendment prohibition against Congress establishing a state religion.

Now the case is going to the U.S. Supreme Court.

What a crock!

I do not understand why this case even is being discussed. The coach lost his job over his praying on the field. He moved to Florida.

“It seems so simple to me: It’s a guy taking a knee by himself on the 50-yard-line, which to me doesn’t seem like it needs a rocket scientist or a Supreme Court justice to figure out,” he told CBS News. “I didn’t want to cause any waves, and the thing I wanted to do was coach football and thank God after the game.”

Then we have this response: “When a coach uses the power of his job to be in a place and have access to students at a time when they’re expected to encircle him and come to him, that’s an abuse of that power and a violation of the Constitution,” Rachel Laser, president and CEO of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, told CBS News’ Jan Crawford. “Religious freedom is not the right to impose your religion on others. We all need to have it, so that’s why the free exercise and establishment clause work together to protect religious freedom for all of us.”

Imposing religion? Wow!

After losing his job for praying on the field, ex-high school football coach Joe Kennedy brings case to Supreme Court – CBS News

As I understand it, the coach didn’t demand players pray with him; it was strictly voluntary. Nor do I believe he preached New Testament Gospel lessons. Which makes me wonder if Jewish, Buddhist or Muslim students could pray to “God” in the same fashion as their Christian teammates.

There is no “sanctioning” of a religion occurring in these prayers. Is there?

Well, the SCOTUS is going to hear the case. My hunch is that the court’s 6-3 super-conservative-majority is going to find that Coach Kennedy violated no constitutional prohibition.

I am OK with that. Let the coach pray.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Uncategorized

Election wasn’t ‘stolen’

David Perdue began a debate in Georgia by declaring that the 2020 presidential race was “rigged” and “stolen” from the idiot who lost the contest.

Oh, then he said his own race for re-election to the U.S. Senate was stolen, too.

Sigh …

Perdue once served in the Senate until Jon Ossoff defeated him. He now says “the evidence is compelling” that he and Donald Trump were victims of “theft” from “widespread voter fraud” in Georgia.

No. He wasn’t. Neither was Trump.

The “compelling” evidence? We still have seen nothing.

The Big Lie needs to be squashed.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Meadows is the new No. 1 culprit?

Mark Meadows may become — and pardon the reference — a marked man as the House select committee exploring the 1/6 insurrection zeroes in on those who were responsible for what transpired on that terrible day.

Meadows served as White House chief of staff at the end of Donald Trump’s term as POTUS. We are beginning to learn that Meadows well might have been involved up to his eyebrows in the planning of the riot that turned terribly violent.

There is one big problem, though, in trying to learn the whole truth about what happened. Meadows isn’t complying with House demands to testify. The select committee still needs to determine whether to levy a contempt of Congress charge against Meadows.

It needs to get real busy. Real fast.

We’re hearing now about text messages that Meadows sent and received involving some of Trump’s closest allies in Congress: the likes of Reps. Jim Jordan, Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Louie Gohmert.

Mark Meadows appears to the common denominator among all those GOP nut jobs.

We hear also that he expected violence to erupt on Capitol Hill before the riot actually occurred. What did he do about it? Not a damn thing! Apparently … 

The White House chief of staff is a high-powered job, even when the POTUS at the time is a certifiable control freak. It will be fascinating for me — and millions of others — to see whether this No. 1 Trumpkin is held to account for what many of us believe he did or didn’t do when the mob of traitors sought to subvert our democratic process.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

media news

I hereby offer an apology

An apology is a rare thing to receive on a blog, but I am about to offer one now. I made a pledge — maybe more than once — to move on from Donald J. Trump and to concentrate exclusively on the here and now and to look only at pols I consider to be relevant.

I am sorry for failing to make good on that promise.

It’s not entirely my fault. You see, Trump keeps injecting himself into the news. Since this blog is about the news, public policy, politics and at times the individuals who make news, well, it becomes imperative for your friendly High Plains Blogger to comment on it.

Trust me when I say this, because it is the truth: I want Donald Trump to disappear. I want him gone from the public stage. I want him removed from the nation’s conscience.

He won’t honor my request and simply vanish. Poof! Be gone, Donald!

Where do we go from here? I won’t make any more promises I likely cannot keep. So I’ll keep commenting on The Donald’s comings, goings and musings as long he keeps retaining some viability in the nation’s political process.

I won’t comment on every single thing that flies out of the liar’s pie hole. I can make that pledge. So there.

Please accept my apology … and keep reading and sharing my thoughts. I appreciate those who do.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Our guns are safe!

Eric Swallwell makes his point with crystal clarity. He writes in an op-ed that appeared on Newsweek.com:

For decades, one of the most tried and true scare tactics by the gun lobby is that the government—specifically Democrats—are coming for your guns. These misinformation campaigns have been used for years to scare law-abiding Americans into thinking they are going to be put under government surveillance to confiscate their guns.

I must stipulate a couple of points. One is that Swallwell is a Democratic congressman and a former prosecuting attorney from California who, in 2021, presided over the second impeachment of Donald J. Trump. He is a fierce partisan.

The second point is that I am one of those “law-abiding Americans” who owns a couple of firearms. I’ve had ’em for many decades. One of the long guns is a .22-caliber rifle my father gave me when I was about 12. The second one is a 30.06-caliber scoped rifle that had been re-bored from its original life as a .303-caliber Enfield; Dad gave that one to me many years ago.

The .22 is a single-shot bolt-action weapon. The 30.06 carries a magazine of five rounds, with a sixth bullet in the chamber. They’re both hidden deeply in our North Texas home.

Why spell out those details? Because as a law-abiding American citizen who — by the way — is angered and appalled at the gun violence that plagues this nation, I have no difficulty with efforts to control the flow of firearms onto our streets.

President Biden Does Not Want to Take Your Guns Away | Opinion (newsweek.com)

I also am acutely aware of what the Constitution’s Second Amendment says about firearms.

It just galls me to the max when I hear demagogues try to place nefarious motives in the hearts of minds of others with regard to guns and their place in modern American society.

The gun lobby seeks to frighten Americans. The lobbyists appear to be winning the argument. Too many Americans are afraid of an enemy that does not exist with regard our guns.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Donald Trump

Remember that this guy still got elected

Alexander Burns and Jonathan Martin have written a book that lays bare even more of the reprehensible examples of how Donald Trump conducted himself as president of the United States.

It is titled “This Will Not Pass.” We have learned a lot of its contents already. How Trump sought help to overturn the 2020 election and how he demanded that governors flatter him and “ask nicely” for federal aid to help them cope with natural disasters.

The book by two seasoned New York Times reporters is just the latest in a string of tell-all tales about life working in the Trump administration. It ain’t pretty, man.

Let us remember something, though, as we ponder whether any of this might forestall a Trump for the presidency a third time in 2024. It is that this disgusting excuse for a human being managed to get elected POTUS in 2016 after:

  • Disparaging a war hero and declaring that he preferred warriors who “aren’t captured.”
  • Mocking a New York Times reporter’s disability.
  • Admitting in an interview that he grabbed women by their genitalia.
  • Admitting to committing adultery on his first two wives and then paying a woman hush money to keep quiet on a tryst he had while married to his third wife — who had just given birth to the couple’s son.
  • Mocking a Muslim Gold Star couple who had the temerity to criticize him during the 2016 Democratic National Convention.

Just so we’re clear. I am not at all convinced that The Donald is even going to run for POTUS in ’24. I see evidence that his support among actual Republicans is eroding. He is making bizarro endorsements of candidates, picking individuals on the basis of their fan appeal and not on any policy pronouncements.

I just want to caution everyone — and I have to remind myself of this, too — against throwing dirt on the former A**hole in Chief’s face.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Hatch’s death saddens me

A strange sense of sadness overtook me this evening as I learned of the death of the longest-serving Republican U.S. senator, Orrin Hatch of Utah.

Why am I so sad? I think it is because Hatch, who left the Senate in 2018, embodied a gentler time in American politics. Did I agree with his policy views? Hah! Not even close! Hardly ever!

However, this conservative lawmaker — whose name appears on hundreds of pieces of legislation that became law — exemplified the ability to work with Democrats. He knew how to find common ground, where to look for it and how to craft it into meaningful legislation.

He said this in his farewell address to the Senate: “The last several years I have seen the abandonment of regular order … Gridlock is the new norm. And like the humidity here, partisanship permeates everything we do, … All the evidence points to an unsettling truth: The Senate, as an institution, is in crisis, or at least may be in crisis.”

Yep, it’s in crisis, all right. It is in crisis because the Senate has turned into a pit of vipers, along with the House, with members of both chambers expressing outright fear of working with members of the other party.

That is nothing close to the “regular order” that Hatch and other senators cherished.

He was a principled conservative, but he was a gentleman, too.

Thus, the sadness at his death.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news, Sports news

Tell the whole story, Sen. Cotton

There you go. This well might be the most compelling rebuke of Republican opposition to the teaching an element of our national history that I have seen so far.

It comes to me from a good friend who share it on social media. The “Tom Cotton” referenced in the top passage is the GOP senator from Arkansas. Cotton has been opposing what he and other congressional Rs refer to as “critical race theory.”

Of course, Sen. Cotton is quite correct to salute the accomplishments of Jackie Robinson, the first African American to play Major League Baseball. He smashed through that barrier 75 years ago this season. “Today we honor him and his lasting legacy,” Cotton wrote via Twitter.

Yes! We do!

But hold on! What about the 50 years of MLB’s existence prior to Robinson joining the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947? Dare we also discuss in our public school classrooms the reasons why Robinson and other African Americans were denied the opportunity to play big league ball with white players? Do we ignore the inherent racism in MLB’s policy banning black players? Do we also ignore the epithets that fans hurled at him as he sought to play baseball in big league ballparks?

There’s a wonderful back story that needs a brief telling. One of Robinson’s closest friends on the Dodgers was a shortstop from Kentucky, Peewee Reese. When the Dodgers took the field in Cincinnati in 1947, the fans heckled Robinson mercilessly, calling him every vile name you can imagine. Reese walked over and stood next to his friend, threw his arm around his shoulders and stared down the crowd until the noise stopped. That act cemented their friendship.

Do well tell our children about that event? Of course we should!

Yet the likes of Tom Cotton would have us ignore that element in our great nation’s otherwise storied history.

No nation in the history of our planet has come of age without suffering through painful chapters. The United States of America has a few of ’em. Racism is a story that needs to be told to our children … and no, it won’t make them “hate America.”

So, if we’re going to salute and honor Jackie Robinson, we need to tell the whole story of what this great man was able to accomplish. Some of it is painful. Still, let’s tell it … and teach it to our children.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Herschel Walker: dumbass

Gosh, I hate speaking badly about a guy I used to admire when all he did was pack a football and run with it for thousands of yards during his career.

However, that ex-gridiron star, former Heisman Trophy winner Herschel Walker of Georgia, is now running for the U.S. Senate and all I can say about him is that he might be the biggest dumbass running for high office in this election cycle.

Walker is running as a Republican. He wants to succeed Sen. Rafael Warnock, one of two Democrats elected to the Senate in 2020 from Georgia.

I have heard some of the nonsense that comes from Walker’s pie hole. One utterance, caught my attention. He recently said while disparaging evolutionary science that “If man came from monkeys, why do we still have monkeys?”

Isn’t that just a real knee-slapper? Actually, that isn’t even an original quip. I heard the late comic George Carlin say it many years ago. So, Walker not only is a dumbass, but he’s a dumbass who cannot offer many original thoughts.

Sen. Warnock has done a creditable job in the Senate. He has become a leading voice of the Senate’s progressive caucus. He also has plenty of what one could call “cred” among African Americans, given that he is African American. What’s more, when he is not writing federal law, he preaches at Ebeneezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, where the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered the Holy Word to his parishioners.

It occurs to me that this contest could offer voters in one state a chance to stop the dumbing-down of Congress by returning a man with considerable intellect — Sen. Warnock — and rejecting a man with next to zero understanding of how government works … and who cannot even produce an original quip.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news

What happened to speed issue on 380?

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Mike Robertson’s name came to my mind today while waiting for Princeton’s mayor, Brianna Chacon, to cut a ribbon and officially open the city’s municipal government complex.

Who is Mike Robertson? He once served on the Princeton City Council and once told me he wanted the Texas Department of Transportation to slow the traffic along U.S. 380 to mph from both ends of the highway route through the city.

Then he decided against seeking re-election to the City Council. He was gone from City Hall.

My concern rests now with the issue he raised. I visited with Robertson a little more than a year ago for a story I wrote for KETR-FM public radio at Texas A&M-Commerce. Robertson spoke of the varying posted speed limits along U.S. 380, how motorists could drive 55 mph as they drove past Princeton High School, but then have to slow to 45 mph as they moved into the middle of the city.

Robertson said he intended to lobby TxDOT — which manages the highway — to reduce the speed limit to 40 mph along U.S. 380’s entire right-of-way through Princeton. I presume he would have allowed the city to post 35 mph limits in front of the high school during certain times of the day, when students are going to school and going home from school.

Robertson’s time on the council has ended. I believe, though, that the issue — and the concerns — he raised are as legit now as they were when he first raised them.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com