Monthly Archives: July 2022

legal news

The Fifth implies guilt

You know what? I am going to agree with an assertion that Donald J. Trump made on the 2016 presidential campaign trail.

The Republican Party nominee for president declared that those who use the Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination usually have something to hide; they imply their own guilt by pleading the Fifth to the U.S. Constitution.

Of course, all of that changes when it’s your friends and supporters taking the Fifth, which Trump hasn’t spoken about in recent weeks while the House select committee examines the 1/6 insurrection against the government.

Former short-term national security adviser Michael Flynn, for instance, hid behind the Fifth more than 100 times when he faced questions from the committee. His response, for example, to a question from Rep. Liz Cheney about whether he believes in the “peaceful transition of presidential power”? He said: “Fifth.”

We’re going to hear a lot more of that kind of gamesmanship from Trumpkins summoned to testify before the panel. The cultists can avoid being indicted for contempt of Congress by showing up and then refusing to answer direct questions by hiding behind one of the founders’ civil liberties … which they are entitled to do.

However, none of it passes the smell test.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

education news

Finally, I get the ‘Black’ reference

Yes, it is true that I am a bit slow on the uptake at times, even in matters relating to the craft I pursued for 30-plus years, almost all of them with great joy and vigor.

It is with that intro that I intend to reveal that I finally understand why media organizations are capitalizing the “B” in “Black” when referring to people.

It started with The Associated Press changing its style. The AP explained it this way: AP’s style is now to capitalize Black in a racial, ethnic or cultural sense, conveying an essential and shared sense of history, identity and community among people who identify as Black, including those in the African diaspora and within Africa. The lowercase black is a color, not a person. AP style will continue to lowercase the term white in racial, ethnic and cultural senses.

Explaining AP style on Black and white | AP News

The light bulb came on. What the AP and other organizations are saying is that Black people — those of the African diaspora — have little if any knowledge of their specific heritage. So, the term Black is used as an ethnic reference the way, say, I use the term “Greek” to define my own ethnic heritage.

I get it. I just thought I would share the realization that finally dawned on me and to declare that from this moment forward, High Plains Blogger is going to adopt that style forever.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news

Hoping for a quiet Fourth

We live in a North Texas city that prohibits fireworks from being detonated within the city limits.

Indeed, Princeton City Hall has made an extra effort this year to get the word out that the Fourth of July celebration must not include fireworks within the city’s corporate boundary.

So, here comes the question: How does the Princeton Police Department enforce that rule? 

Independence Day is coming. Am I expecting a sleepless night listening to fireworks exploding all over the damn place? Yes, I fear that will happen. It will occur because the Princeton PD is unable to arrest or cite every single violator out there.

Which I guess brings me to the point of wondering why have an ordinance that cities cannot enforce effectively?

I know that Princeton isn’t the only city in America that has such a rule on the books. Indeed, I suspect most cities have them, which means that fireworks celebrations are limited to unincorporated areas way out in the country.

In our part of the world, the country isn’t so far away. Still, I am going to lament what I expect will happen in our neighborhood that sits in the middle of a growing city in Collin County, Texas. We’re going to hear bombs bursting in air and watching the rockets’ red glare.

The last time I posted something complaining about the noise associated with these celebrations, I got called out for being a sorehead. Well, I guess I’ll have to expect it once again by wishing there was a way for our PD to enforce a citywide rule.

Still, I want to wish the United States of America a happy Fourth of July birthday. I’m going to do so quietly.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

media news

Saddened by newspaper images

The images I keep seeing of the place where I spent the longest stint of my newspaper career keep tugging at my heart.

The Amarillo (Texas) Globe-News buildings have been vacant for some time. What’s left of the newspaper staff moved into a suite of offices in a downtown bank tower. Someone reportedly has purchased the G-N site, which will become a place that manufactures lubricants.

The images just tear my guts out.

The press room still has paper in the presses. I saw one picture of encyclopedias piled up. Another one had bound volumes of old editions. The newsroom looks like the staff fled the building in haste, leaving paper and assorted trash strewn across the floor.

I would pay real American money to know what the G-N’s final days were like as the company that purchased it from the owners for whom I worked got ready to vacate the site.

Next month marks a decade since I walked off my job after nearly 18 years as an editor of the opinion pages. I don’t miss it these days. I got over the pain — and the embarrassment — associated with my sudden departure from a career I pursued with great joy for nearly 37 years.

To be candid, seeing the images of what is left of the Globe-News only heightens my relief and happiness at being away when the end arrived.

Life goes on.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news

One down, one to go …

Pete Arredondo no longer serves on the Uvalde (Texas) city council, having submitted his resignation in light of the staggering publicity surrounding Arredondo’s other job.

He is currently the police chief of the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District police department. Arredondo is now on “administrative leave” from that post pending a probe into the “abject failure” he demonstrated by failing to stop the madman who killed 19 fourth-graders and two teachers more than a month ago.

Arredondo needs to do something else for a living, in my humble view. Police are probing the Robb Elementary School massacre and have described Arredondo’s lack of action in the early minutes of the slaughter an “abject failure.”

The police authorities, including the Department of Public Safety, have clammed up. Parents, grandparents, siblings and loved ones of the victims are demanding answers. They aren’t getting anything.

Arredondo took office on the city council a few days after the horrifying massacre. He has missed numerous meetings. He resigned, saying he didn’t want to be a “distraction.” Thanks for nothing, chief.

He is an even bigger “distraction” as chief of the Uvalde ISD police department.

I’m just telling ya’, the man’s law enforcement career is now over.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Cheney a ‘sellout’?

Roll this one around for a moment: A critic of this blog believes U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney is a “sellout” because she doesn’t profess loyalty to Donald J. Trump.

This critic, a fellow with whom I worked at the Amarillo Globe-News — and a guy I still consider to be a friend — predicts that Cheney will lose badly in the Wyoming GOP primary in August. He’s probably right. However, it is worth asking: why?

She is likely to lose because most Wyoming Republican primary voters believe the same as my critic/friend, that she has “sold out.”

To whom? Or to what?

I want to be clear about something. Liz Cheney remains an ardent conservative lawmaker. She is far too conservative for my taste. However, she takes her responsibilities seriously and is faithful to the core of her being to them.

My view is that she has sold her soul to the search for truth behind the 1/6 insurrection. Cheney has sold out, too, to the oath she took when she joined Congress nearly eight years ago. That oath was to the United States Constitution, to the laws of the land and to the government; she did not pledge an oath to an individual.

Cheney is a “sellout”? If that’s how these right-wing, Trumpkin Cabal of Kooks define the term … well, I welcome it!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Stay strong, Mr. President

1 Comment

Democrats are beginning to grumble about President Biden. They fret over his poll numbers, suggesting he isn’t showing enough decisive leadership in times of crisis.

Most of the griping comes from the progressive wing of the party, the fraction of Democrats who want to pack the Supreme Court with more liberal justices; they want to eliminate the filibuster in the Senate; they want the president to forgive all student debt.

They cannot understand why the president — who proclaims himself to be a progressive Democrat — isn’t joining them in their zealous quest for political perfection.

I’m going to give Joe Biden a bit more credit than progressives are giving him. The man has been a creature of government since before he was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1972. He knows politics and understands the value and the need for compromise.

Some progressive politicians say at this moment they cannot bring themselves to endorse President Biden for a second term should he decide to run in 2024. He has declared his intention to run for a second term, which — of course! — could change. I learned long ago that a pol’s “intent” doesn’t always translate into a forever condition.

Joe Biden has been dealt a tough hand. Vladimir Putin went to war illegally in Ukraine. That conflict has affected the price of fossil fuels. Inflation is raging. But, seriously, what can the president do unilaterally to bring it under control?

All that said, I am not going to acknowledge publicly that the economy is in the tank. We’re still adding hundreds of thousands of jobs each month. Unemployment is down to pre-pandemic lows.

And, yes, we have those midterm elections coming and the prospect — although it’s not certain — that Republicans are going to win control of Congress.

The progressive wing of the Democratic Party, though, can count this chump blogger as one who is going to stand with the president.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Cheney to become GOP martyr

As a general rule I dislike attaching the word “martyr” to run-of-the-mill politicians, even when they do extraordinary things.

Liz Cheney is one of those pols who also happens to be doing something that in an earlier era wouldn’t merit the kind of praise she is about to receive from this blog.

The Wyoming Republican congresswoman is standing tall for the rule of law. She is calling a former GOP president precisely what he is: an existential threat to the nation’s representative democracy.

Cheney is likely to pay a grievous political price soon in the Wyoming Republican primary. She appears slated to lose her primary fight for a fourth term in the U.S. House.

‘She knows it wasn’t stolen’: Liz Cheney challenges Republican primary rival over false Trump election claims (msn.com)

And why? Because Wyoming Republican voters have swallowed the swill offered by the former Liar in Chief. Donald Trump’s Big Lie has gained traction among the gullible voters who appear to be the most dedicated among the GOP faithful.

Liz Cheney said this week that Republicans cannot possibly be faithful to both the Constitution and to Donald Trump. Of the two, which is more essential? Hmm. Let me think. I’ll go with the Constitution.

As we have learned during the House hearings on the insurrection — which Cheney has been a key principal — Trump doesn’t give a rat’s a** about the Constitution. His loyalty belongs only to himself and he has demanded it of those who worked for him in public life.

Liz Cheney has pushed back against the ex-POTUS’s sociopathic tendency only by insisting that he follow the law.

That she would be punished for that is reprehensible in the extreme. Yet, polling data suggest at this moment that Liz Cheney is going to lose her primary battle to return to Congress.

It boggles my mind that anyone with half a noodle in their noggin could believe the liar who once masqueraded as president of the United States.

I fear that such a travesty is going to unfold and a congresswoman who is fighting for the truth will pay the price for such ignorance.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Sports news

Good riddance, except …

It’s pretty darn easy for Pac-12 football fans to say “goodbye and good riddance” to UCLA and the University of Southern California, which have announced their intention to bolt from the Pac-12 and sign up with the Big 10 football conference.

Except that the move all but destroys the Pac-12.

I am a Pac-12 fan. More specifically, I am a fan of the Oregon Ducks football program, which for the past decade or so has been dominant along the Left Coast. And any true-blue Pac-12 fan knows that the only people who root for USC and UCLA either (a) live in the Los Angeles area or (b) grew up there and remain wedded to the Trojans and Bruins because, well, they just are.

All this grid conference shopping makes my head spin. Texas A&M left the Big 12 for the SEC a few years back, destroying the vaunted A&M vs. University of Texas annual football rivalry. Well, the Longhorns and the Oklahoma Sooners are joining the SEC, too.

The Big 10 now includes many more schools than just the 10 that comprised the original conference clustered around the Great Lakes region.

Now, heaven forfend, the Pac-12 has joined the parade of conferences with changing university lineups.

Don’t make me want to give up you, my beloved Ducks. Maybe the conference can rebuild itself around the Ducks’ awesome brand. The conference does have the Ducks, the University of Washington Huskies, Cal, Stanford, Oregon State, Washington State, Utah and Colorado. They all play pretty good football at most of those places.

UCLA and USC? Who needs ’em?

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news

Journey goes on

Our retirement journey has taken a new turn, with a new vehicle towing a new recreational vehicle.

You know already that we traded in our 29-foot fifth wheel for a 21-foot travel trailer. We’ve taken our new trailer out on a couple of short jaunts. We hauled it behind our big ol’ pickup, Big Jake, the 2011 3/4-ton Dodge diesel beast.

We bid so long to Big Jake today and took possession of our new — and a good bit smaller — truck. It’s a Ford Ranger. We’re toying with what to name it. I am increasingly stuck on Kemo Sabe. Whatever.

The new truck is a beaut. It’s brand new. Ford built the 2022 vehicle per our specs. Just for my wife and me. It’s big enough to haul our travel trailer.

Our journey, though, has changed, but mostly because of outside influences. The price of gas makes long-term travel too expensive for us. So, we’re re-evaluating how we intend to use our new truck and our new RV. Best guess? We’ll stay mostly close to home. Indeed, Texas is big enough for us to be able to visit state parks hither and yon.

Now, does this mean that extended travel is out forever? Hardly. We’ll wait a little while, see where fuel prices go. If they come back to Earth, well, we just might hit the long and winding road to points farther away.

Toby the Puppy, moreover, will have to get used to new travel digs. We remain confident that he will adjust just fine.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com